OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 


MY    SON 

CORRA  HARRIS 


.MY  SON 

BY 

CORRA    HARRIS 

AUTHOR  OF  "HAPPILY  MARRIED,"  "A  CIRCUIT  RIDER'S  WIFE,' 

"THE  RECORDING  ANGEL,"  ETC.; 
AND  IN  COLLABORATION  WITH  FAITH  HARRIS  LEECH: 
"FROM  SUNUP  TO  SUNDOWN" 


NEW  ^SJT  YORK 
GEORGE   H.   DORAN   COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1921, 
BY  GEORGE   H.   DORAN   COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    1920,    1921,   BY  THE   CURTIS   PUBLISHING   COMPANY 


PRINTED   IN   THE    UNITED   STATES   OF  AMERICA 


MY    SON 


2130221 


CHAPTER  I 

YEARS  ago  I  wrote  a  book  about  my  husband,  Wil 
liam  Thompson,  who  was  a  circuit  rider  in  the 
Methodist  itinerancy.  I  have  read  this  book  myself, 
not  only  with  interest  because  it  is  a  literal  transcript 
of  our  lives,  but  with  wonder  in  the  light  of  what 
has  happened  since,  because  it  contains  no  reference 
to  the  son  born  to  us  two  years  after  we  entered  the 
itinerancy.  Rather,  I  seem  to  have  been  at  some 
pains  to  omit  him  from  this  record.  At  the  time  this 
book  was  written  he  did  not  seem  to  belong  to  it. 
I  was  still  withholding  him  in  my  heart  from  the 
hardships  and  sacrifices  William  and  I  had  made  of 
our  lives.  I  believed  he  was  different,  you  under 
stand.  William  was  his  father,  but  I  always  thought 
of  him  more  particularly  as  my  son.  He  had  my 
secular  nature.  The  solemn  Sabbath  of  the  soul,  the 
awful  nearness  of  Providence  and  speculations  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  came  into  my  life  under  the 
shadow  of  William's  prayers.  My  corruption  was 
not  originally  concerned  about  putting  on  incorrup- 

7 


8  MY    SON 

tion,  and  to  this  day  I  cannot  help  worrying  a  little 
about  being  raised  merely  a  spiritual  body.  The 
sense  I  have  of  my  own  human  reality  shrinks  from 
the  winged  florescence  of  this  idea.  I  have  always 
been  a  substantial  person,  closer  kin  than  William 
to  my  dust. 

I  used  to  think  with  secret  satisfaction  that  this  son 
of  mine  resembled  my  own  father,  who  could  not 
by  any  stretch  of  charity  or  imagination  have  been 
regarded  as  a  pious  man,  and  who  even  in  death  only 
managed  to  look  the  noble  image  of  stern  Adam 
clay.  But  he  had  a  strong  character  and  achieving 
spirit,  with  his  scenes  laid  mightily  in  this  present 
world.  From  the  beginning  this  boy  had  the  same 
valor  of  life  in  his  face,  not  at  all  like  his  own 
father's,  whose  countenance  was  so  fine  and  benig 
nant  that  one  could  almost  see  the  wing  tracks  of 
angels  in  the  air  about  his  head. 

When  this  child  was  born  William  wished  to 
name  him  after  one  of  the  Apostles,  preferably  John, 
but  I  would  not  have  it.  He  was  too  much  of  a 
John  himself  in  meekness  and  long  suffering.  As  a 
wife  I  was  willing  to  share  these  attributes  with  him, 
but  as  a  mother  I  had  other  plans  for  my  son.  We 
finally  agreed  that  he  should  be  called  Peter.  Wil 
liam,  like  most  gentle  saints,  loved  this  repentant 
fisherman  whom  the  Lord  sent  to  "feed  my  lambs." 
But  I  was  satisfied  with  the  name  because  if  there 
was  to  be  this  kind  of  apostolic  succession  in  the 


MY   SON  9 

family  I  wanted  one  who  could  refer  back  to  a  mili 
tant  precedent,  and  who  could  and  would  cut  off 
somebody's  ears  under  proper  provocation.  The 
grace  of  turning  the  other  cheek  was  a  spirtual  attain 
ment  in  which  William  excelled,  and  being  an  in 
effably  good  man  he  could  afford  this  extravagance 
in  humility;  but  the  way  Simon  Peter  brandished  his 
sword  and  cut  the  high  priest's  servant's  ear  has 
always  appealed  to  me  more.  I  know  of  at  least 
one  bishop's  ear  which  I  coveted  as  long  as  he 
lived. 

I  shall  pass  as  briefly  as  possible  over  Peter's 
youth,  because  this  record  has  to  do  with  the  man 
he  became  in  spite  of  me. 

He  was  a  good  baby  and  never  notably  good  after 
ward.  For  a  number  of  years  we  moved  him,  along 
with  our  few  worldly  goods,  chickens,  puppy  and 
commentaries,  from  one  circuit  to  another  without 
making  up  our  minds  about  him.  I  could  not  be 
partial  to  him  because  there  was  William,  and  Wil 
liam  could  not  because  there  was  his  God,  for  whom 
he  was  bound  to  forsake  anybody  or  everybody  at  a 
pinch.  This  situation  was  entirely  agreeable  to 
Peter.  If  he  had  a  soul  at  this  time  he  showed  no 
evidence  of  having  one.  He  was  simply  a  very  fat 
good  time  quietly  from  morning  until  night.  If  I 
little  animal  who  walked  on  his  hind  legs  and  had  a 
had  a  secret  sin  in  those  days  it  was  the  pleasure 


10  MY   SON 

I  took  in  him,  because  nothing  had  fallen  upon  him, 
neither  the  fear  of  the  Lord  nor  the  anguish  of 
conscience.  He  was  the  emblem  of  that  life  which 
was  already  passing  from  me  in  the  shadow  of  Wil 
liam's  prayers.  I  was  becoming  a  good  woman,  but 
Peter  was  that  fleshpot  of  Egypt  which  I  carried 
with  me  through  the  wilderness.  He  was  my  hope 
in  the  now  of  this  present  world,  before  that  other 
world  to  come,  toward  which  I  was  journeying  hand 
in  hand  with  William. 

His  father's  relations  to  Peter  were  characteristic. 
He  was  determined  to  lay  the  foundation  of  the 
gospel  in  him  before  any  other  foundations  were 
laid.  Peter's  attitude  was  also  characteristic.  He 
was  not  surprised  to  learn  that  God  made  him.  A 
child  never  is.  They  are  endowed  with  an  incredible 
sense  of  personal  magnitude.  It  is  only  after  one 
has  passed  through  the  diminishing  process  of 
becoming  a  man  that  he  doubts  whether  he  was 
worth  or  received  such  meticulous  care  from  the 
Almighty. 

Peter  learned  the  Ten  Commandments  with  an  air 
of  serene  detachment.  He  also  learned  his  father's 
precious  Beatitudes  and  the  Twenty-third  Psalm, 
merely  with  his  tongue.  I  can  see  him  now,  a  very 
short  pudgy  little  boy,  standing  in  the  mournful  light 
of  William's  cavernous  eyes  reciting  Isaac  Watts' 
majestic  hymn  in  childish  treble: 


MY   SON  11 

When  I  thurvey  the  wondrouth  Croth 
On  which  the  Printh  of  Glory  died, 

My  richetht  gain  I  count  but  loth. 
And  pour  contempt  on  all  my  pride. 

These  teachings  had  no  appreciable  effect  on  his 
conduct.  As  he  grew,  thinned  in  the  middle  and 
lengthened  in  his  legs,  he  showed  the  usual  normal 
tendencies  toward  damnation.  I  do  not  know  what 
the  members  of  our  church  thought  of  him,  but  I 
doubt  if  he  redounded  any  to  our  glory.  He  was  a 
good  student  of  books,  and  had  a  bad  record  in  be 
havior  at  school.  He  was  frank,  mischievous  and 
possessed  of  a  militant  disposition.  He  never  lied  to 
me,  but  he  was  ready  to  deceive  his  father  when  some 
doubtful  deed  must  be  hidden.  I  suppose  this  was 
for  the  same  reason  that  Adam  made  specious  ex 
planations  to  t:  *  Lord  on  the  day  he  also  performed 
one  of  his  own  deeds.  Peter  was  afraid  of  his  father. 
My  belief  is  that  the  moral  sense  is  never  born  in  any 
of  us  except  through  the  pangs  of  transgressions. 
Peter  suffered  these  pangs  to  an  unusual  degree.  It 
is  no  soft  place  to  be  the  son  of  a  saint.  William 
was  continually  snatching  him  like  a  little  brand 
from  the  burning.  He  snatched  him  with  prayers 
and  with  the  rod. 

When  he  was  about  twelve  years  old,  I  remember, 
we  were  living  in  a  parsonage  that  had  a  round  table 
in  the  dining  room.  William  used  to  lead  Peter, 


12  MY    SON 

shrinking,  into  this  room  for  punishment  when  the 
sin  he  had  committed  was  too  flagrant  to  be  wiped 
out  by  prayer  in  the  study.  I  do  not  know  why, 
unless  it  was  because  there  was  no  barn  on  the  place, 
where  boys  usually  receive  paternal  castigations. 
Anyhow,  the  performance  would  begin,  Peter  dart 
ing  round  and  round  the  table,  William  following 
after  with  his  coat  tails  flying,  applying  the  rod 
at  more  or  less  regular  intervals. 

I  had  my  feelings  on  these  occasions,  the  only  ones 
I  ever  had  bitterly  antagonistic  to  William  and  his 
gospel,  so  uncompromising,  so  full  of  punishments. 

When  Peter's  yells  and  the  swish  of  the  switch  be 
came  unbearable  I  used  to  slip  softly  to  the  door, 
open  it  the  merest  crack,  thrust  my  hand  through, 
seize  William's  coat  tail  as  he  passed,  give  it  an 
authoritative  tug  from  behind,  then  close  the  door 
and  walk  tremblingly  back  to  my  chair  in  the  next 
room.  I  cannot  say  what  might  have  happened  if 
he  had  failed  to  heed  this  hint  of  maternal  provi 
dence  over  my  son,  but  he  always  did. 

"Now,  sir,"  I  would  hear  him  say,  speaking  stern 
ly,  "get  your  Bible  and  memorize  the  third  and  tenth 
verses  of  the  twenty-sixth  chapter  of  Isaiah !" 

The  third  reads:  "Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  perfect 
peace,  whose  mind  is  stayed  on  thee:  because  he 
trusteth  in  thee";  and  the  tenth  one  reads  terribly: 
"Let  favour  be  shewed  to  the  wicked,  yet  will  he  not 
learn  righteousness:  in  the  land  of  uprightness  will 


MY   SON  13 

he  deal  unjustly,  and  will  not  behold  the  majesty 
of  the  Lord." 

I  do  not  know  how  William  could  remember  the 
verses  of  the  Scriptures  so  accurately  under  dis 
turbing  circumstances,  but  he  invariably  dosed  Peter 
with  both  kinds. 

Then  he  would  go  out  to  make  pastoral  visits,  and 
no  doubt  to  quiet  his  nerves,  for  he  was  always 
mournfully  upset  by  these  Jehovah  seances  with 
Peter.  Then  my  son  would  slip  quietly  through  the 
dining-room  door  and  appear  before  me,  standing  at 
a  little  distance,  wishful  and  indignant,  his  face  tear- 
stained,  still  rubbing  his  shoulders  through  his  thin 
summer  jacket.  This  was  his  way  of  tempting  me. 
But  I  always  resisted,  except  possibly  I  may  have 
regarded  him  with  too  much  tenderness  for  disciplin 
ary  purposes. 

"Peter,"  I  would  say,  "you  did  wrong.  Your 
father  did  right  to  punish  you.  Now  take  a  bath 
and  get  your  Bible!" 

I  always  made  him  take  that  baptismal  bath  after 
ward,  because  it  soothed  and  cooled  his  heated  body 
and  still  hotter  temper.  And  I  always  saw  that  he 
knew  the  penitential  verses  before  his  father  re 
turned. 

Children  are  more  than  intelligent,  they  are  clair 
voyant.  They  know  us  so  much  better  than  we  know 
them.  Peter  has  told  me  since  that  he  used  to  watch 
for  my  hand  to  appear  through  the  crack  of  that 


14  MY    SON 

door,  and  yelled  the  louder  that  it  might  show  quick 
ly.  He  never  doubted,  he  told  me,  that  my  sympa 
thies  were  with  him,  in  spite  of  my  hypocritical  sup 
port  of  his  father.  And  I  remember  saying  in  reply : 
"Yes,  but  your  father  was  always  right,  Peter!"  He 
looked  at  me  keenly,  and  laughed. 

It  is  queer  how  one  may  still  remain  faithful  to 
another's  ideals,  when  they  never  were  really  one's 
own.  In  my  heart  I  was  opposed  to  William's 
methods  of  bringing  up  my  son.  I  had  that  feeling 
about  Peter.  He  was  mine,  the  only  treasure  I  had 
on  earth.  But  I  never  dared  to  interfere.  We  did 
not  discuss  the  matter,  but  I  was  sure  that  William 
had  secret  designs  on  him.  He  hoped  to  make  a 
preacher  of  him.  I  watched  the  development  of  his 
plan  in  silence,  Peter  was  never  aware  of  it.  But  he 
was  no  potter's  clay  in  his  father's  hands.  I  trusted 
the  quality  of  my  son.  William's  methods  might 
keep  down  the  animus  in  him,  but  I  thanked  my 
heavenly  Father  that  he  could  not  actually  call  him 
to  preach  the  gospel. 

I  was  determined  to  break  this  entail  of  the  min 
istry  on  William's  family,  he  himself  being  the 
fourth  one  in  direct  succession  from  father  to  son, 
all  good  men,  and  faithful.  But  it  is  well  to  keep 
the  dust  of  your  family  in  good  condition,  as  well 
as  their  immortal  souls.  One  or  two  wrestling 
Jacobs  are  enough.  If  they  keep  it  up  one  generation 
after  another  they  develop  a  sort  of  spiritual  diathesis 


MY   SON  15 

which  affects  the  nerves  of  the  body  and  divorces 
them  mentally  from  the  realities  of  this  present  exist 
ence.  I  have  heard  William  tell  how  when  he  was 
a  very  small  boy  he  used  to  hide  in  the  mulberry 
bushes  behind  his  mother's  garden  to  wrestle  in 
prayer.  My  heart  ached  for  him  in  the  throes  of 
his  infantile  spiritual  struggles.  He  was  born  with  a 
prayer  on  his  lips.  He  lost  all  the  happy  trans 
gressions  of  youth.  He  was  never  for  one  comfort 
able  irresponsible  moment  of  this  world.  His  flesh, 
his  natural  instincts  and  wishes  were  his  crucifixion 
to  the  day  of  his  death. 

It  seemed  to  me  as  I  considered  these  things,  that 
I  wanted  Peter  saved — barely  saved,  you  understand 
— but  I  was  not  willing  that  he  should  sacrifice  the 
whole  of  life  in  this  world  for  salvation  in  the  next 
one.  There  must  be  many  saints  in  heaven  who 
earn  their  citizenship  there  with  less  expense.  It 
was  wrong,  I  know  that  now,  but  I  took  pleasure 
then  in  the  fact  that  when  Peter  wrestled  it  was 
with  another  youth,  not  anybody's  angel.  Some 
times  when  he  came  in  from  school  with  bruises  and 
abrasions  on  his  strong  young  body  I  felt  strangely 
lifted.  I  wanted  to  sing  a  song.  I  went  about  my, 
work  in  the  kitchen  with  a  lighter  step.  I  could  feel 
the  smile  on  my  face  at  the  thought  of  what  was 
going  on  in  the  study  at  that  moment  between  Peter 
and  his  father.  I  knew  that  my  son  was  sitting 
hunched  up  on  his  chair,  a  little  secret  man  savage, 


16  MY    SON 

head  lowered  submissively  while  William  lectured 
him  on  the  duties  of  the  peacemaker.  Peter  was  no 
peace  producer !  And  I  was  glad  of  it.  This  busi 
ness  of  peacemaking,  my  masters,  I  know  it  to  be 
a  perpetual  submission  to  that  which  is  not  peace 
in  the  other  fellow.  There  have  been  times  in  my 
life  when  it  was  infernally  hard  to  bear,  the  peace 
that  William  made  and  kept. 

But  I  kept  right  in  behind  Peter,  lest  he  should 
reflect  too  much  discredit  on  his  father.  He  reached 
the  age  when  every  boy  wants  to  stop  attending  Sun 
day  school.  It  comes  upon  them  about  the  time  they 
change  from  short  trousers  into  long  ones.  I  do  not 
know  why  unless  it  is  because  Sabbath  school  is  as 
sociated  in  their  minds  with  childish  things  or  with 
the  innocuous  desuetude  of  the  teachers  who  so  fre 
quently  teach  them.  But  I  made  Peter  go,  only  al 
lowing  him  a  little  more  margin  of  time  to  stand  out 
side  the  church  before  he  went  in.  Then  he  ar 
rived  at  the  period  when  he  wanted  to  sit  in  the  back 
seats  with  the  other  young  roe-buck  sinners.  But  I 
made  him  keep  on  sitting  up  front.  He  must  have 
looked  good  to  the  congregation,  but  he  was  not 
good,  no  better  than  a  boy  of  that  age  really  is. 

He  passed  unscathed  through  one  revival  after 
another  when  he  should  have  been  soundly  converted. 
I  do  not  know  if  others  have  observed  this,  but  I 
believe  it  is  harder  for  a  preacher's  son  to  be  born 
again.  They  know  too  much  about  it.  They  hear 


MY   SON  17 

the  brethren  talk  about  revival  methods  and  this  or 
that  kind  of  gospel  for  stirring  up  sinners.  A  good 
many  of  their  spiritual  illusions  are  destroyed. 
They  must  always  seek  the  kingdom  of  heaven  on  a 
cold  collar,  so  to  speak,  which  is  the  best  way,  but 
far  more  searching.  They  may  join  the  church,  they 
usually  do  at  an  early  age,  but  I  have  rarely  seen 
one  soundly  converted  in  the  spiritual  stew  of  a 
revival  where  so  many  people,  especially  young 
ones,  used  to  be  wildly  and  enthusiastically  con 
verted. 

Still,  I  always  made  Peter  go  up  for  prayers  when 
his  father  invited  penitents  to  the  altar.  It  would 
do  him  no  harm  to  go,  but  it  certainly  would  reflect 
on  William's  ministry  if  he  could  not  move  his  own 
son  to  show  some  signs  of  repentance. 

William's  health  failed  when  Peter  was  seven 
teen.  After  that  he  was  superannuated  and  faded 
away  into  the  Job  Scriptures.  The  one  thing  he 
never  surrendered  of  all  his  hopes  was  that  Peter 
would  be  called  to  the  ministry  and  carry  on  the 
work  of  his  fathers  in  the  Lord's  vineyard. 

Then  William  passed  to  his  reward.  We  took  him 
back  and  buried  him  in  the  old  Redwine  churchyard. 
A  great  many  sinners  and  few  saints  are  buried 
there.  It  is  a  cheerful,  worldly  minded  community, 
which  returns  to  its  dust  in  singular  confidence,  as 
disobedient  children  have  rest  and  peace  in  their 
beds  at  night.  I  did  not  worry  about  this.  I  had 


18  MY    SON 

the  feeling  that  William  would  be  very  much  at 
home  in  that  silent  congregation  of  sinners.  This 
was  the  way  he  had  spent  his  whole  life. 

Peter  finished  high  school  in  June  of  that  year. 
It  was  settled  that  he  should  put  himself  through 
college.  He  took  the  agency  for  a  one- volume  en 
cyclopedia.  It  was  printed  in  diamond  type  and 
contained  all  the  available  information  in  the  world. 
I  was  never  able  to  find  anything  in  it  that  I  really 
wanted  to  know,  but  he  said  it  was  there.  He  had 
great  success  with  these  books.  He  sold  them  to 
people  who  could  not  read,  and  to  those  who  could 
but  would  not.  He  stored  more  knowledge  in  this 
county  during  three  months  than  a  hundred  years 
of  schools  could  have  imparted.  And  I  have  no 
doubt  that  it  is  all  there  yet,  still  inviolate,  a  thou 
sand  musty  old  volumes  scattered  in  the  cupboards 
and  on  the  shelves  of  farmhouses,  in  country  stores 
and  college  libraries.  He  had  no  conscience  about 
selling  the  thing,  and  he  earned  enough  money  to 
take  him  through  his  freshman  year. 

He  wanted  to  enter  the  state  university,  but  Wil 
liam  had  a  good  man's  suspicions  of  universities. 
He  said  the  very  name  suggested  latitudinarianism. 
He  said  a  man  could  get  such  broad  views  as  to 
unfit  him  for  the  wear  and  tear  of  life.  He  said 
mere  culture  was  not  a  preservative  of  the  human 
mind,  but  a  sort  of  intellectual  gilt,  which  rubbed 


MY   SON  19 

off  presently  and  showed  something  ugly,  often  vic 
ious  beneath.  He  did  not  think  any  man  ought  to 
have  more  knowledge  than  he  could  live  up,  to  de 
cently  and  practice  with  honor  among  his  fellow 
men.  Maybe  he  was  narrow  about  that,  but  so  are 
the  strongest  rays  of  light  that  penetrate  the  utter 
most  darkness  of  your  insides.  So  is  the  steel- 
tempered  wedge  that  cleaves  solid  substances.  So 
is  the  life  of  every  man  who  achieves  his  purpose 
by  his  own  will  and  works.  He  must  be  something 
of  a  bigot,  hard  and  invincible  at  the  pointed  end 
of  his  mind. 

The  events  of  the  last  few  years  indicate  that 
William's  prejudice  against  some  of  our  universi 
ties  were  justified.  The  worst  things  we  are  ex 
periencing  now  were  taught  for  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century  in  these  institutions  before  the  reds 
and  radicals  introduced  them  to  the  credulous  work 
ing  classes.  In  those  days  they  were  merely  flash 
light  topics  of  conversation,  used  by  smart  people  to 
lighten  the  tedium  of  their  cultured  existence,  and 
your  uncultured  one.  But  four  years  ago,  when  we 
experienced  the  terrific  shock  of  war,  and  men  be 
gan  to  act  fiercely  and  objectively  according  to  the 
way  they  thought,  it  required  the  ferocious  strength 
of  armies,  the  cold  and  merciless  grasp  of  commer 
cialism,  and  the  concentrated  efforts  of  all  the 
churches  to  hold  things  together  against  the  Setebos 
doctrines  taught  by  many  learned  professors. 


20  MY    SON 

So  I  persuaded  Peter  to  enter  Eliam  College, 
which  is  under  the  control  of  our  church.  He  might 
not  learn  so  much,  but  I  thought  what  he  did  learn 
would  not  be  so  bad  and  dangerous  to  know. 

Then  I  settled  down  to  live  on  what  the  confer 
ence  allowed  me  each  year  from  the  widows-and- 
orphans  fund.  Fortunately  William  had  a  little  in 
surance,  because  a  widow  cannot  live  on  what  she 
receives  from  this  fund,  not  even  if  she  has  lost  her 
appetite  and  is  the  kind  of  widow  Paul  recom 
mends  in  the  fifth  chapter  of  Timothy:  "Let  not  a 
widow  be  taken  into  the  number  under  threescore 
years  old,  having  been  the  wife  of  one  man,"  he 
writes  Timothy,  "well  reported  of  for  good  works; 
if  she  have  brought  up  children,  if  she  have  lodged 
strangers,  if  she  have  washed  the  saints'  feet,"  and 
so  forth  and  so  on. 

I  have  nothing  against  Paul,  except  the  way  some 
elders  and  bishops  copy  his  authoritative  manner 
and  methods,  when  Paul  was  overheated  or  prob 
ably  not  very  well,  in  dealing  with  their  humbler 
John  brethren.  But  I  do  think  he  was  harder  on 
these  poor  widows  than  he  might  have  been  on,  say, 
widowers;  not  that  I  ever  heard  of  a  widower  figur 
ing  in  the  Acts  or  any  other  Scriptures.  I  am  not 
complaining,  you  understand,  I  am  simply  stating 
my  opinion,  as  Paul  did  himself  sometimes  when  he 
admitted  that  so  far  as  he  knew  it  was  not  divinely 
inspired. 


MY    SON  21 

I  have  sometimes  thought  it  might  have  been 
better  for  me  if  I  had  married  again.  I  was  still 
a  young  woman  when  William  died.  Then  what 
happened  would  not  have  happened  to  me.  But 
when  you  have  been  the  wife  of  a  man  of  God  it  is 
not  so  easy  to  descend  in  the  scale  of  things  to  be 
come  the  wife  of  a  merchant  or  even  a  millionaire. 
Some  of  them  may  have  done  it,  but  I  never  knew 
or  heard  of  a  Methodist  preacher's  widow  who  mar 
ried  the  second  time.  I  am  only  admitting  that  I 
thought  of  it  long  afterward,  much  as  you  think  of 
a  trip  to  China  which  you  know  you  never  would 
or  could  have  taken. 

As  time  passed  I  began  to  feel  my  oats,  as  the 
saying  goes.  I  was  still  doing  my  Christian  deeds, 
but  I  was  no  longer  walking  so  softly  before  the 
elders  and  stewards  in  my  church  as  I  used  to 
walk  when  they  held  William's  poor  little  dingy 
worldly  fortunes  in  the  hollow  of  their  hands. 
Sometimes  I  used  to  get  up  and  sail  out  of  church 
after  the  services  were  over  when  the  presiding  elder 
had  preached,  without  telling  him  I  had  enjoyed 
his  sermon  or  that  it  went  straight  to  my  heart,  just 
to  know  how  it  felt  to  be  independent  like  other 
people.  I  used  to  sit  in  the  congregation  and  enjoy 
the  sensation  of  not  having  to  worry  when  promi 
nent  members  slept  through  the  sermon,  because  it 
was  not  William  who  was  preaching.  No  one  can 
know  who  has  not  had  the  experience  how  anxious 


22  MY    SON 

a  pastor's  wife  is  about  everything,  from  listening  to 
know  which  of  the  brethren  flatter  her  husband's 
prayers  with  the  approval  of  their  amens,  to  the 
crucial  and  desperate  concern  she  feels  about 
whether  he  will  ever  be  able  to  get  his  collections 
in  full. 

I  rested  from  all  that.  I  was  looking  forward  to 
another  estate  when  Peter  graduated.  He  had  done 
exceedingly  well.  After  the  first  year  he  made  his 
expenses  by  tutoring  and  teaching  the  summer  school 
at  his  college.  His  scholarship  was  so  good  that 
he  had  been  offered  the  position  of  adjunct  professor 
of  philosophy  in  this  college  when  he  had  taken  his 
degree.  I  anticipated  an  elegant  old  age  in  Peter's 
house  on  the  campus  of  Eliam  College.  I  used  to 
entertain  myself  planning  how  we  should  furnish 
it.  When  you  have  lived  for  so  many  years  in  par 
sonages  furnished  by  committees  you  do  crave  the 
privilege  of  having  your  own  things  and  rubbing 
them  and  looking  at  them  and  possessing  them. 
Peter  would  have  a  real  library  to  work  in,  and  I 
would  have  flowered  curtains  at  the  windows  in 
my  bedroom,  and  a  stuffed  chair  to  sit  in.  I  always 
wanted  gay  curtains,  but  committees  who  furnish 
parsonages  do  not  indulge  in  them.  And  I  always 
wanted  an  everyday  easy-chair.  The  hard  wooden- 
bottom  chairs  that  prevail  in  parsonages  are  durable, 
but  they  get  to  be  hard  on  the  very  soul  of  you  from 
having  to  sit  ui  them  so  much.  I  could  see  myself 


MY   SON  23 

in  this  house  or  walking  through  the  campus,  quietly 
but  genteelly  dressed  like  a  good  old  proverb  of  a 
woman,  with  people  telling  other  people  that  "the 
elderly  lady  who  just  passed  is  th°  mother  of  Dr. 
Peter  Thompson,"  and  so  forth  and  so  on. 

You  never  know  what  will  happen  to  you.  This 
is  why  I  do  not  permit  myself  to  be  too  sure  about 
the  kind  of  place  heaven  is.  The  only  description 
we  have  of  it  is  John's  dream  on  Patmos,  when  he 
was  old  and  tired  and  blind  and  homesick.  Maybe 
if  Paul  had  had  that  vision  he  might  have  seen  a 
different  heaven  altogether.  Anyway,  it  is  best 
not  to  be  too  sure  of  your  handsome  things  in  this 
present  world  if  you  are  a  woman.  The  older  I 
am  the  more  it  seems  to  me  that  we  are  merely  the 
attributes  of  our  men.  I  do  not  know  if  suffrage 
and  hypothecated  economic  independence  will  make 
much  difference.  It  only  seems  a  new  way  we  have 
of  being  their  nearer  adjectives.  Whenever  we 
make  up  our  minds  to  do  something  great  and 
splendid  it  is  always  something  we  do  to  or  for  men. 
We  do  not  seem  able  to  live  apart  from  them,  men 
tally,  morally  or  politically — only  spiritually,  be 
hind  that  door,  when  we  lay  their  case  before  the 
Lord  and  pray  for  guidance  about  what  next  to  do 
with  some  one  of  them.  And  all  the  time  he  does 
the  doing.  You  only  screech  or  picket  him  or  sub 
mit  to  the  inevitable.  He  simply  packs  you  up  and 
takes  you  along  with  him  when  he  decides  to  change 


24 

his  scenes,  either  as  a  duty  or  a  treasure.  You  may 
be  a  home  body,  but  you  must  travel.  You  may 
want  to  see  the  world,  but  you  must  remain  at  home 
and  let  him  b~  your  world.  I  do  not  know  that 
it  can  be  said  even  by  those  who  believe  in  the  doc 
trine  of  predestination,  that  Providence  predestines 
us  to  our  fate.  Your  husband  does  it,  then  maybe 
you  are  passed  along  to  your  son,  and  he  wigwags 
you  over  a  way  your  old  tired  feet  never  wished  to 
go.  But  you  must,  because  that  is  the  way  he  has 
chosen  for  himself.  It  is  something  like  that,  though 
I  do  not  seem  to  make  it  very  clear;  but  if  you 
have  streaked  it  this  way  and  that  after  one  man  half 
a  lifetime,  and  then  suddenly,  when  you  were 
settling  down  in  your  own  mind  and  spirit,  if  you 
are  obliged  to  get  up,  turn  round  and  follow  another 
one  up  and  down,  you  know  what  I  mean. 

The  blow  fell  on  me  like  a  bolt  from  a  clear  sky. 
This  was  in  May  before  Peter  graduated  in  June. 
I  always  had  a  short  filial  letter  from  him,  written 
on  Sunday  afternoon.  But  for  two  weeks  I  did  not 
hear  from  him,  then  in  the  middle  of  the  third  week 
came  a  thick  letter.  I  do  not  know  why,  but  my 
heart  misgave  me  as  I  weighed  this  bulky  package  in 
my  hand.  Men  are  never  so  voluminous  as  when 
they  have  something  to  excuse  or  explain. 

I  went  into  my  room  and  shut  the  door  before  I 
broke  the  seal,  though  there  was  not  a  soul  in  that 
house  but  me,  and  probably  my  God. 


MY   SON  25 

When  I  had  finished  reading  the  letter  I  laid  it 
on  the  window  sill  beside  me  and  folded  my  hands. 
It  was  a  warm  spring  day,  but  I  felt  the  chill  of 
winter  in  the  air.  The  sun  was  shining,  but  the 
shades  of  twenty  years  gathered  and  darkened  that 
room.  Memories  showed  their  faces  in  these  shad 
ows.  I  saw  William,  young  and  strong  in  the  Lord, 
starting  forth  to  walk  to  his  appointment  to  preach 
on  the  Redwine  circuit,  which  was  our  first  work. 
I  saw  the  mountains,  bleak  and  cold,  above  the  house 
where  our  first  baby  had  been  born  dead.  I  remem 
bered  that  Gethsemane  night. 

I  saw  the  old  brown  altars  filled  with  mourning 
penitents;  I  saw  the  dim  faces  of  so  many,  many 
congregations  William  had  served;  I  remembered  the 
ones  of  them  we  had  nursed,  and  the  ones  we  had 
buried.  And  it  had  all  been  so  hard,  so  barren  of 
every  comfort  except  the  comfort  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
which  settled  on  William,  never  on  me. 

Looking  back  through  this  pale  twilight  of  mem 
ory  I  knew  now  when  the  change  came  in  William, 
when  he  really  gave  up  his  hopes  as  a  man  and 
ceased  to  expect  better  appointments.  It  was  after, 
a  certain  annual  conference  when  he  had  been  sent 
back  to  the  same  circuit,  though  he  had  expected  to 
be  moved  to  a  station.  He  knew  it  then,  but  it  was. 
years  before  I  realized  that  he  would  always  be  a 
circuit  rider,  never  have  any  big  church  to  serve. 

The  years  stretched  before  me  like  weary  roads  on 


26  MY    SON 

these  circuits.  How  tired  I  used  to  get  during  the 
long  revival  seasons,  always  having  to  prepare  a 
table  for  company,  but  always  attending  every  serv 
ice,  hoping  the  penitents  would  come  to  the  altar 
when  at  the  end  of  the  sermon  William  entreated 
them  to  come. 

The  wailing  strains  of  that  old  hymn  he  used  to 
give  out  then  filled  the  room,  faint  and  sad : 

Just  as  I  am,  without  one  plea 
But  that  Thy  blood  was  shed  for  me, 
And  that  Thou  bidd 'st  me  come  to  Thee, 
0  Lamb  of  God!  I  come,  I  come! 

My  eyes  filled  with  tears.  William  used  to  look 
so  sorrowful  when  nobody  came.  Then  he  would 
exhort  again  before  we  sang  the  next  verse,  while 
I  held  my  breath  in  suspense,  hoping  this  would 
move  them.  And  so  on  it  would  go  until  William 
would  say  fatally,  "Last  stanza!"  meaning:  "You 
have  denied  your  God,  and  some  of  you  may  be 
dead  and  lost  before  another  day!" 

Then  they  would  begin  to  straggle  down  the 
aisle — ungainly  youths,  young  girls  suddenly  serious. 
Then  they  crowded,  hurrying  to  the  altar,  old  and 
young  together. 

How  my  heart  always  lifted  at  this  windfall  of 
mourners  beneath  William's  preaching!  I  could  see 
him  now  in  memory  as  I  had  seen  him  so  many  times 


MY   SON  27 

lift  his  hand  say,  "Let  us  pray!  Brother  Rhuebot- 
tom,  will  you  lead  us  in  prayer*?" 

The  rustling  and  scraping  of  heavy  shoes  as  we 
went  down  on  our  knees!  How  the  rafters  seemed 
to  shake  above  the  roll  and  thunder  of  Brother 
Rhuebottom's  prayer!  He  was  a  "valorous  worm" 
storming  the  gates  of  God.  He  was  Jacob  wrestling 
with  the  pilgrim  angel.  And  he  would  not  let 
him  go  without  the  blessing  he  craved.  Women 
sobbed,  men  shouted  "Amen!"  and  the  mourners 
moaned. 

These  were  the  only  moments  of  perfect  joy  I 
remember  in  all  those  years.  How  could  I  be  happy, 
I  asked  myself  now,  in  the  spiritual  anguish  of  such 
scenes.  They  were  terrible,  even  the  souls  born 
out  of  these  travails.  They  were  changed,  these 
men  and  women  who  sprang  up  from  these 
altars.  They  had  a  light  on  their  faces.  A  great 
experience  burned  in  their  eyes. 

But  how  we  suffered,  pinched  and  prayed — Wil 
liam  all  for  them,  I  all  for  William.  Looking  back 
I  could  see  that  he  never  really  lived  at  all,  that 
he  spent  his  life  praying  for  eternal  life. 

This  was  the  life  I  had  meant  that  Peter  should 
escape.  Peter  was  to  be  my  own  life  restored  to  me. 

Tears  fell  upon  my  folded  hands.  I  felt  like 
an  old  clock  that  has  been  going  too  fast  which  is 
suddenly  turned  back  years  and  years. 

I  reached  for  his  letter.    But  it  was  now  too  dark 


28  MY    SON 

to  read  it.  I  had  been  there  a  long  time.  The  sun 
had  gone  down.  These  were  real  shadows  about 
me  now.  But  it  made  no  difference,  I  knew  what 
was  in  this  letter.  I  should  never  be  able  to  forget 
or  escape  what  was  in  it. 

Peter  wrote  that  he  had  decided  to  enter  the  min 
istry.  Stripped  of  much  he  said  before  and  much 
that  he  wrote  afterward,  this  was  the  sentence  that 
dimmed  my  light  and  set  me  back  years  in  time. 

He  had  declined  the  place  offered  him  in  the 
faculty  at  Eliam  for  a  number  of  reasons,  all  writ 
ten  out  in  full,  as  a  man  who  takes  not  so  much 
trouble  to  convince  you  as  he  does  to  convince  him 
self. 

He  had  been  considering  the  ministry  for  some 
time,  but  he  had  not  mentioned  this  to  me  until  he 
was  fully  settled  in  his  own  mind  that  this  was 
the  thing  he  would  do. 

He  was  sure  that  I  would  be  happy  to  know  of 
this  decision.  He  had  an  idea  that  most  good  women 
wanted  their  sons  to  become  preachers.  And  though 
I  had  remained  "generously  silent,"  leaving  him  free 
to  make  his  own  choice  of  a  profession,  he  was  glad 
his  choice  was  no  doubt  an  answer  to  my  prayers. 
He  was  depending  upon  me,  he  went  on.  He  re 
membered  with  more  and  more  admiration  the  way  I 
had  helped  and  sustained  his  father.  We  would 
start  again  in  the  itinerancy  together,  at  the  bot 
tom,  on  a  circuit,  probably  the  usual  hardships  for  a 


MY    SON  29 

time,  but  he  believed  he  would  be  able  to  command 
good  appointments  in  a  very  few  years,  probably 
the  best  in  the  conference.  He  thought  he  knew 
what  the  people  needed  now,  a  gospel  that  fitted 
their  needs  under  modern  conditions.  The  church 
could  not  afford  to  lag  behind  the  progress  civiliza 
tion  was  making.  That  changed  men's  minds.  The 
successful  preacher  had  to  keep  up  with  them,  and 
go  them  one  better;  and  so  on  and  so  forth. 

He  had  some  money  left,  enough  for  his  purpose. 
He  would  come  home  for  a  few  days  after  his  grad 
uation  to  see  me  and  receive  my  blessing.  Then  he 
would  go  to  New  York  for  a  course  of  lectures  in 

He  mentioned  the  place.  It  is  one  of  those 

wide-open  theological  seminaries.  This  would  be 
his  last  chance  to  do  some  studying  along  a  special 
line  which  he  needed,  for  he  expected  to  join  the 
Conference  and  take  work  in  the  autumn. 

Mothers  are  undoubtedly  the  most  gifted  hypo 
crites  in  the  world  to  their  children.  They  not  only 
love  and  cherish  them,  they  play  a  role,  they  recite 
the  lines  that  belong  to  that  role,  which  may  not  be 
dictated  by  their  hearts  or  their  own  convictions, 
but  by  the  circumstances  in  which  they  bring  up 
their  children.  So  it  had  been  with  me.  As  Wil 
liam's  wife,  Peter's  mother  was  forced  to  keep  him 
in  the  shadow  of  the  church  with  solemn  admoni 
tions,  when  always  I  hoped  and  longed  for  him  to 
escape  into  the  world  of  deeds  done  by  men,  not 


30  MY    SON 

saints.  And  now  he  imagined  I  should  be  thankful 
because  he  was  about  to  enter  the  ministry ! 

It  was  his  father  who  prayed  as  long  as  he  lived 
that  Peter  might  be  called  to  preach  the  gospel. 
Even  at  that  I  was  not  so  sure  William's  prayers 
had  been  answered. 

I  rose,  lighted  the  lamp  and  read  Peter's  letter 
again.  I  missed  that  strange  egotism  of  humility 
peculiar  to  men  who  have  been  "called"  to  preach 
the  gospel.  William  had  it.  I  was  always  afraid 
he  would  be  called  as  a  missionary  to  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth.  But  Peter  wrote  that  he  had 
"decided  to  enter  the  ministry."  And  he  had  his 
eye  already  fixed  on  the  "best  appointments  in  the 
Conference." 

Wrestling  with  angels  is  nothing  to  wrestling  with 
your  own  heart,  especially  when  you  have  grown  old 
and  tired  and  your  heart  has  grown  strong  in  one 
desire.  I  passed  through  hours  of  struggle  that 
night,  alone  in  my  house.  I  did  not  want  Peter 
to  enter  the  ministry.  A  terrible  weariness  fell  upon 
me  at  the  thought  of  going  back  over  those  hard 
years.  It  was  not  that  I  no  longer  believed  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  but  that  I  did  believe  in  it.  I 
had  settled  down  comfortably  in  my  faith.  I  dread 
ed  to  be  stirred  up  again,  for  other  people's 
sins,  made  anxious  day  and  night  about  the  affairs 
of  the  church.  I  had  been  William's  amen,  so  to 
speak,  for  so  many  years.  And  nothing  had  come 


MY   SON  31 

of  it  for  just  me,  but  an  awful,  unnatural  vir- 
tuousness,  a  sacrificial  piety,  and  the  death  of  Wil 
liam. 

If  it  came  to  the  pinch  I  doubt  if  any  man  or 
woman  would  choose  to  live  the  same  life  over 

« 

again,  however  well  he  had  lived  it.  He  might  for 
that  reason  choose  one  quite  different.  It  may  be  a 
fearful  thing  to  admit,  but  I  wanted  now,  even  in 
my  approaching  age,  some  of  the  natural  willful 
sweetness  of  just  living,  of  being  responsible  to  the 
Lord  only  for  my  personal  sins,  not  for  the  brethren 
or  the  sistren.  Heaven  knows  I  never  wanted  to  be 
so  good  a  woman  as  I  had  to  be  as  William's  wife. 
How  many  times  I  had  been  tempted  to  speak  the 
truth  to  stewards  in  our  church  or  at  the  woman's 
missionary  meeting,  that  would  have  skinned  some 
body  alive  for  meanness,  when  I  had  to  say  some 
thing  meek  and  forbearing  for  William's  sake. 
What  a  relief  it  would  have  been  just  to  tear  round 
sometimes  regardless  of  my  soul's  salvation,  or  any 
other  soul's  salvation.  But  I  never  did.  I  was  wait 
ing  for  Peter  to  grow  up,  win  a  place  in  the  world 
and  open  the  door  of  this  prison  for  me. 

Now  here  he  was  about  to  close  it  in  my  face 
forever.  You  do  not  know  how  much  you  desire 
something  until  you  are  about  to  lose  it.  I  suffered. 
And  I  could  not  do  as  I  always  did  in  the  years  of 
my  submission,  get  the  Bible  and  find  some  Scrip 
ture  to  comfort  me.  If  you  are  not  meek  it  is 


32  MY    SON 

no  use  to  read  your  Bible.  "What  is  in  you  is  not  in 
it. 

I  sat  there  in  my  old  gray  dress  with  my  old  gray 
head  leaning  against  the  back  of  the  chair,  with  my 
eyes  closed  to  hold  the  tears. 

There  was  another  reason  why  I  did  not  want 
Peter  to  be  a  preacher.  Thirty  years  ago,  when  Wil 
liam  and  I  were  young,  the  best  men  mentally  and 
spiritually  entered  the  ministry.  They  had  great 
virtues  and  great  gifts.  They  had  dignity  and  in 
fluence.  They  insipred  reverence.  And  many  of 
them  became  national  figures  in  the  church  of  God. 
Now,  we  all  know  it  is  too  often  the  seconds  who 
enter  the  ministry,  ordinary  men  whose  sacred  of 
fices  do  not  exalt  or  change  their  quality.  They  fre 
quently  became  prominent,  but  they  do  not  become 
great.  Their  eloquence  is  like  any  other  eloquence. 
Their  hearts  do  not  burn,  their  lips  have  not  been 
touched  with  the  holy  fire.  They  lack  some  awful 
quality  of  the  spirit  which  the  old  preachers  had  and 
which  they  have  not.  It  is  not  for  me  to  judge 
them,  but  I  have  wondered  if  they  did  not  lack  the 
courage  of  that  sublime  thing  which  we  call  faith. 
They  have  been  tamed  by  something  which  is  not  the 
Holy  Ghost.  The  young  preacher  may  be  a  dull 
honest  man  or  he  may  be  a  sensationalist,  but  he 
does  not  speak  the  same  things  nor  with  the  same 
authority  preachers  of  an  elder  day  had.  The  very 


MY   SON  33 

pulpit  where  these  men  stood  has  been  effaced.  It 
is  becoming  more  and  more  of  a  rostrum. 

For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  looked  askance  at 
my  son.  Never  before  had  he  measured  himself  in 
my  thoughts  beside  his  father.  I  had  counted  his 
cubits  by  another  standard.  And  now  I  found  him 
undersize.  What  <was  this  presumption  that  pos 
sessed  him1?  How  could  he  dare  so  much1?  What 
was  the  matter  with  the  world  that  a  smart  young 
man  could  "decide  to  enter  the  ministry"  much  as 
he  would  decide  to  practice  law,  and  look  forward 
shrewdly  to  the  "best  appointments." 

I  thought  I  would  write  Peter  exactly  what  was 
in  my  mind.  I  would  search  him  and  warn  him. 

Then  I  fell  to  trembling  at  the  fear  of  what  I  was 
about  to  do.  Who  was  I  to  question  him4?  After 
all,  my  son  had  delivered  himself  into  the  hands 
of  the  Lord.  The  Lord  would  chasten  him  and  tear 
him  down  and  build  him  up  according  to  his  word 
and  his  Spirit.  That  was  the  end  of  the  struggle. 
I  knew  it  when  I  began  to  weep.  Then  I  went  over 
to  the  table  and  wrote  him  the  kind  of  letter  the 
mother  of  a  young  preacher  should  write.  I  told 
him  that  I  would  go  with  him  and  help  him  and 
stand  by  him  so  long  as  I  had  the  strength  for  this 
business.  All  I  asked  of  him  was  that  he  would 
pray  without  ceasing  that  he  might  be  a  true  disciple 
and  become  as  much  as  God  would  give  him  grace 
to  be  like  his  father,  who  had  literally  believed  in 


34  MY    SON 

"the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life,"  and  had  preached 
it,  counting  himself  as  nothing  that  he  might  serve 
his  Lord. 

I  am  a  Protestant  as  much  as  I  can  be  anything, 
but  I  am  not  always  orthodox  in  secret.  Sometimes 
my  heart,  the  heart  that  loved  and  believed  in  Wil 
liam,  will  put  messages  in  my  prayers  to  him,  when 
I  should  pray  only  to  my  Heavenly  Father.  It  was 
so  on  this  night  when  at  last  I  came  to  my  knees. 
I  know  I  started  out  right,  asking  God  to  have  mercy 
upon  me,  and  to  create  within  me  a  clean  heart  and 
renew  a  right  spirit  within  me,  because  he  knew  I 
needed  it;  and  to  give  me  courage  and  strength  to 
live  again  within  the  hollow  of  his  hand.  It  was 
no  use  to  ask  forgiveness  for  wishing  a  little  life 
apart,  for  I  knew  I  should  never  cease  to  regret  and 
wish  for  the  world.  I  merely  made  a  silent  foot 
note  here  in  my  mind  for  him  tc  see — namely,  that 
he  had  made  this  world,  filled  it  and  blessed  it.  For 
what,  if  not  for  his  children  to  love  it  and  crave  it*? 
But  when  it  came  to  Peter  I  found  myself  talking 
to  William  in  that  prayer.  I  wanted  him  to  be  with 
Peter  as  much  as  he  could  under  the  circumstances. 
If  he  had  any  influence  in  heaven  I  wanted  him  to 
see  that  strong  angels  guided  Peter's  footsteps,  be 
cause  I  was  very  uneasy  about  him. 

Peter  came  home  in  June.  He  was  in  high  spirits, 
a  ruddy,  handsome  young  man  with  the  sparkle  of 
a  fine  intelligence  in  his  strong  black  eyes.  I  could 


MY    SON  35 

see  that  he  had  a  well-seasoned  mind,  and  the  use  of 
it,  but  he  did  not  look  like  a  man  upon  whom  the 
mantle  of  a  prophet  had  fallen.  I  missed  that  high 
secret  assurance  the  call  of  God  gives,  not  easily 
named,  but  to  be  found  in  Scriptures  like  this: 
"Thou  art  mine.  When  thou  passest  through  the 
waters,  I  will  be  with  thee;  and  through  the  rivers, 
they  shall  not  overflow  thee:  when  thou  walkest 
through  the  fire,  thou  shalt  not  be  burned;  neither 
shall  the  flame  kindle  upon  thee.  For  I  am  the  Lord 
thy  God." 

I  had  been  through  these  places  with  William, 
without  partaking  of  his  great  assurance,  but  I  had 
felt  these  waters,  these  fires;  I  had  watched  him  on 
his  mountain  top,  and  I  had  been  very  near  him 
in  the  valley  of  shadows  many  times.  Everything 
had  happened  to  me  except  that  my  cup  had  never 
run  over,  and  my  head  had  never  been  anointed 
with  oil.  And  it  did  not  seem  to  me  that  Peter  had 
any  sense  of  these  experiences  through  which  he 
must  pass.  I  was  determined  again  to  search  him. 

I  wanted  to  ask  him  a  few  questions  that  the 
brethren  do  not  ask  a  young  man  when  they  grant 
him  a  license  to  preach  the  gospel.  But  this  was 
not  so  easy  to  do.  He  was  very  affectionate,  ready 
to  talk  about  whatever  concerned  just  me,  his 
mother,  but  I  could  not  pin  him  down  in  any  spirit 
ual  corner  of  a  conversation. 

Finally  it  dawned  upon  me  that  he  understood 


86  MY    SON 

and  was  purposely  evading  the  issue.  His  manner 
implied  that  his  idea  of  the  ministry  was  different, 
possibly  beyond  me.  He  kept  off  the  subject  as 
men  do  when  they  keep  their  women  out  of  their 
business  affairs.  Maybe  he  thought  I  was  too  old 
to  face  the  issues  a  minister  must  meet  now. 

But  there  was  one  test  that  he  could  not  evade. 
I  gave  it.  We  had  been  sitting  on  the  porch  in  the 
moonlight  talking  round  and  round  in  an  ever-widen 
ing  circle.  I  went  in,  lit  the  lamp  and  called  Peter. 
I  called  him  much  in  the  tone  I  used  to  call  him 
when  it  was  time  for  him  to  wash  his  feet,  say 
his  prayers  and  go  to  bed. 

He  came  in  blinking  at  the  light  for  a  moment  and 
looking  across  inquiringly  at  me  as  he  sat  down  be 
side  the  table. 

I  took  my  little  Bible  from  the  window  sill,  where 
I  keep  it,  and  handed  it  to  him. 

"Lead  us  in  prayer,  Peter,"  I  said. 

I  may  be  mistaken,  but  I  thought  he  hesitated 
for  the  briefest  moment.  Then  he  took  the  book, 
opened  it  at  random  and  read  a  few  verses.  Then 
we  knelt  and  Peter  prayed — a  sort  of  intellectual 
brickmason's  prayer  to  his  Heavenly  Father,  if  you 
know  what  I  mean;  the  words  of  a  good  workman 
who  meant  to  do  his  duty  and  make  things  go. 
I  will  say  that  there  was  vim  and  confidence  in 
this  prayer  and  not  the  faintest  taint  of  self-right 
eousness,  nor  even  of  humility. 


MY   SON  37 

The  next  evening  in  a  little  silence  that  occurred 
between  us  I  reached  out  quite  unexpectedly  and 
took  Peter  unawares. 

"My  son,"  I  said,  "you  do  not  know  what  is  be 
fore  you.  You  are  the  fifth  man  in  direct  succes 
sion  in  your  family  who  has  given  up  the  world 
and  chosen  the  cross  for  his  portion." 

Peter  stirred,  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  made 
no  reply. 

"The  first  one  was  converted  under  John  Wesley 
during  the  first  revival  he  held  in  this  country.  They 
were  all  good  men,  but  your  father  was  the  best. 
He  was  a  holy  man,  Peter.  His  footsteps  are  before 
you." 

"Father  was  good,  the  best  man  I  ever  knew,"  he 
answered  after  a  pause;  "but  he  was  not  a  success 
ful  preacher." 

"Many  were  converted  under  his  ministry,"  I 
answered  quietly. 

"Those  emotional  experiences,  they  did  count 
then;  but  now,  mother,  everything  is  different.  You 
must  try  to  understand  that.  Religion  is  a  develop 
ment " 

"Religion  is  a  great  experience,"  I  interrupted. 

"It  is  now  past  the  emotional,  primitive  stage, 
and  is  becoming  a  creative  force  in  the  world.  It 
is  reaching  people,  getting  some  sense  into  their 
heads  about  how  to  think  and  keep  clean  and  live 


38  MY    SON 

healthily  in  their  minds  and  bodies.  That  is  the 
best  use  to  make  of  it." 

This  sounded  blasphemous  to  me,  but  I  held  my 
peace. 

"It  is  all  there,  in  the  Scriptures,  if  we  will  only 
learn  to  use  it,  not  shout  it,"  he  went  on.  "But  we, 
the  preachers,  must  meet  the  people  halfway.  We 
have  been  too  far  removed  from  them  and  their 
practical  everyday  needs." 

No  such  place  as  "halfway"  is  mentioned  in  the 
gospels  for  a  priest  to  meet  his  people,  but  I  did  not 
say  anything. 

"You  remember  Snitkins  *?"  Peter  began  again 
after  a  pause. 

Yes,  I  told  him.  I  was  not  likely  to  forget  Snit- 
kins.  He  was  a  steward  in  the  last  church  William 
served;  a  large  yellow-bearded  tomcat  of  a  man 
who  made  money,  ruled  the  town  and  wanted  to  rule 
the  church.  He  complained  of  William's  sermons, 
said  he  couldn't  keep  awake.  He  thought  that 
church  needed  a  younger  man  for  pastor.  I  always 
thought  he  had  something  to  do  with  William's 
being  superannuated  at  the  next  Conference. 

"Father  did  not  know  how  to  manage  Snitkins, 
that's  what  I  mean,"  Peter  said. 

"It  is  not  clear  to  me  yet,  what  you  mean,  Peter," 
I  returned. 

"He  wanted  to  be  prominent,  that  was  Snitkins' 
nature.  Father  should  have  appointed  him  super- 


MY   SON  39 

intendent  of  the  Sunday  school.  He  wanted  to 
be.  Then  he  might  have  made  a  showing  that  would 
have  helped  the  reports  from  that  church.  See  my 
point?" 

"I  see  it,  but  your  father  would  never  have  made 
it,"  I  returned. 

He  said  he  did  not  want  me  to  think  he  failed  to 
appreciate  the  wonderful  grace  and  goodness  of  his 
father,  but  he  was  trying  to  show  how  necessary 
it  was  now  to  use  all  means  to  further  the  interests 
of  the  church. 

"Father  was  a  mystic,"  he  added. 

And  he  went  on  showing  me,  talking  well  and 
very  shrewdly,  and  I  must  say  like  a  man  with  a 
good  conscience. 

I  gathered  that  he  thought  William  depended  too 
much  on  the  leadings  of  the  Spirit,  and  that  he, 
Peter,  was  by  that  as  some  liberal-minded  Christian 
Scientists  are  about  administering  a  dose  of  medi 
cine  to  a  man  who  does  not  believe  in  this  doctrine 
and  cannot  be  cured  by  faith  of  his  ailment.  He  was 
for  getting  results,  whether  you  were  in  the  spirit  or 
out  of  it. 

We  had  no  more  talk  along  this  line,  and  he  went 
away  the  next  day,  to  be  gone  until  Conference  met 
in  November. 

The  one  comfort  I  had  was  that  he  was  not  a 
hypocrite.  He  was  in  earnest  about  calling  him- 


40  MY    SON 

self  to  the  ministry  and  about  being  a  good  busi 
ness  man  of  the  gospel.  But  I  felt  very  queer  about 
facing  the  saints  on  those  old  backwoods  circuits 
with  Peter  in  this  fix. 


CHAPTER  II 

• 

IN  November  of  his  graduation  year  Peter  joined 
the  Conference  and  received  his  first  appointment. 
He  was  sent  to  Brasstown,  a  small  place  in  the 
mountains,  far  north  of  the  church  equator  of  this 
state.  This  was  not  a  circuit,  but  what  is  known  as 
a  half  station.  Besides  the  church  at  Brasstown  he 
would  serve  one  other,  five  miles  distant  in  the 
country,  known  as  the  Suetally  Chapel.  This  was 
encouraging,  for  the  rule  is  to  try  out  a  young 
preacher  on  one  of  the  hardest  circuits,  many  of 
them  consisting  of  six  churches. 

I  was  very  busy  while  he  was  at  Conference,  sell 
ing  the  things  I  had  accumulated  during  the  last 
four  years  and  getting  ready  to  move.  When  my 
trunks  were  packed  I  had  nothing  extra  except  my 
onion  buttons  and  a  few  garden  seed.  I  had  my 
doubts  about  Peter  as  a  pastor,  and  no  matter  what 
happened  if  we  had  a  good  garden  we  could  pull 
through.  This  was  a  sort  of  private  collection  Wil 
liam  and  I  used  always  to  take  from  the  earth,  to 
insure  us  against  those  misfortunes  which  overtake 
the  children  of  God  when  their  daily  bread  de 
pends  upon  the  good  will  of  their  stewards  and  the 
Quarterly  Conference. 

41 


42  MY    SON 

Nothing  remained  to  be  done  when  Peter  returned 
from  the  Conference  except  to  pack  his  father's 
books.  The  trunks  were  in  the  hall,  and  one  large 
black  tin  box.  This  box  contained  the  strongest  and 
most  cherishable  sermons  of  four  generations  of 
preachers  in  the  Thompson  family.  They  dated 
back  to  a  certain  discourse  by  the  Rev.  Henry 
Thompson,  who  had  been  a  terribly  ungodly  man 
until  he  was  converted  at  Savannah  under  John 
Wesley  and  received  the  call  to  preach,  but  did  not1 
get  one  of  Mr.  Wesley's  teaspoons.  I  do  not  know 
how  it  happened,  but  there  are  a  lot  of  these  tea 
spoons  handed  down  in  Methodist  families,  which 
are  said  to  have  descended  directly  from  John  Wes 
ley.  And  it  always  sounded  queer  to  me,  pre 
senting  newborn  souls  with  souvenir  spoons.  If  I 
should  ever  meet  this  great  apostle  of  Methodism  in 
the  next  world  I  may  make  some  discreet  inquiries 
of  him  about  this.  You  cannot  approve  of  every 
thing  a  good  man  does,  but  if  he  was  rewarding  his 
converts  openly,  what  I  want  to  know  is  why  Henry 
Thompson  did  not  get  one  of  these  spoons.  He  was 
soundly  converted.  He  became  a  great  preacher  and 
seems  never  to  have  forgotten  the  narrow  escape  he 
had  from  damnation.  He  appears  always  to  have 
preached  with  a  coal  of  fire  in  his  mouth.  The  text 
of  this  old  sermon  was,  "The  soul  that  sinneth,  it 
shall  surely  die."  And  it  was  a  brimstone  master- 


MY   SON  43 

piece  of  the  gospel.  There  were  also  many  of  Wil 
liam's  best  sermons  in  this  box. 

After  we  had  discussed  the  news  every  preacher 
always  brings  back  from  a  meeting  of  the  annual 
Conference,  and  Peter  had  delivered  messages  from 
some  of  the  elder  brethren  who  entered  the  itiner 
ancy  years  ago  when  William  did,  we  went  into  the 
hall  to  consider  our  baggage,  which  must  be  shipped 
at  once  to  Brasstown. 

Peter  stood  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets  regard 
ing  three  old  itinerating  trunks,  the  ribs  of  them 
bulging,  their  sides  battered  and  the  tops  crank- 
sided,  grinning  a  little,  but  securely  roped  and  tied. 
He  said  he  doubted  if  they  would  make  the  trip. 

"Oh,  yes,  they  will.  They  are  used  to  it,"  I  as 
sured  him. 

He  recognized  the  tin  box.  From  the  time  he 
could  remember  he  must  have  seen  this  box  going 
before  us  to  the  next  appointment. 

"Still  keeping  those  old  sermons,"  he  said,  smil 
ing. 

"Yes,  they  are  the  Enoch  records  of  men  who 
walked  with  God,"  I  answered,  nettled  by  some 
thing  in  the  tone  of  his  voice. 

We  went  back  into  the  living  room,  where  he  be 
gan  to  examine  William's  books.  He  bent  over, 
wrinkled  his  fine  nose  and  doubled  up  the  wrinkles 
on  his  smooth  young  brow  at  these  old  ragged  vol- 


44  MY    SON 

umes  with  their  bindings  torn  and  their  loose  leaves 
sticking  out  here  and  there. 

"Mother,  these  books  are  all  out  of  date,"  he  said. 

I  regarded  him.  The  eye  may  speak  to  a  man 
even  when  he  has  his  back  turned  to  you.  My  son 
felt  something  poignant  laid  on  him  from  behind. 
He  stood  up,  glanced  at  me  sidewise,  ran  his  fingers 
across  the  backs  of  Kitto's  Commentaries,  which 
filled  one  shelf. 

"Now,  these  are  perfectly  useless,"  he  told  me. 

"Peter "  I  began. 

"There  is  not  a  single  volume  in  this  collection 
worth  the  cost  of  packing  and  shipping,"  he  finished 
in  spite  of  my  trying  to  say  something. 

"Peter,"  I  began  again,  giving  him  an  eye  for 
an  eye  this  time,  "I  do  not  know  what  is  in  these 
books.  I  never  did  know.  But  your  father  knew. 
He  said  that  they  were  a  great  help  and  inspira 
tion  to  him.  And  where  I  go,  they  are  going!" 

"Oh,  well,  if  you  feel  so  about  it,  we  must  take 
them,  of  course,"  he  answered  in  the  manner  of  a 
man  who  humors,  merely  humors  a  woman. 

So  we  took  them,  and  every  time  we  moved  to 
another  appointment  we  carried  them  and  the  old 
battered  tin  box.  Peter  shed  his  own  modern  books 
on  the  Scriptures  frequently,  as  if  his  spirit  molted 
theologically  like  a  chicken.  But  I  kept  right  in 
behind  him  with  all  those  thunderous  old  com 
mentaries  from  which  William  had  obtained  the 


MY    SON  45 

stern  and  majestic  obscurities  of  his  preaching 
style. 

We  arrived  in  Brasstown  much  as  preacher  folk 
always  do.  And  I  was  too  busy  for  a  time  to  know 
how  Peter  was  performing  his  offices  as  a  pastor. 

The  Methodist  parsonage  has  changed  less  in  the 
last  twenty  years  than  the  Methodist  Church.  The 
effect  of  the  religious  mind  on  parsonage  furniture 
is,  I  believe,  far  more  permanent  than  it  is  on  human 
character.  This  may  be  because  the  human  is  never 
quite  reduced  to  the  mere  grimness  of  it.  Even  a 
saint  flares  sometimes  and  lets  in  a  rosy  light  on 
his  morals.  But  the  parsonage  is  hopelessly  sub 
missive  to  anything  your  sternest  Christian  imagina 
tion  can  do  it,  which  is  also  a  frugal  imagination. 
The  insides  of  it  never  minister  to  anything  but  the 
sacrificial  instincts  of  its  victims.  The  one  at  Brass- 
town  was  very  severe.  But  it  was  clean.  Sister 
Stone,  who  was  chairman  of  the  reception  committee 
which  met  us  the  day  we  came,  called  my  attention 
to  this  fact. 

"You  see,  it  is  clean,"  she  said  when  we  returned 
to  the  parlor  after  we  had  finished  checking  up  the 
list  of  all  the  parsonage  things. 

"Yes,  everything  is  beautifully  clean,"  I  agreed 
cordially. 

She  was  regarding  me  authoritatively  over  the  top 
of  her  spectacles.  The  other  women  of  this  commit- 


46  MY    SON 

tee  were  regarding  me  like  a  determined  cloud  of 
witnesses. 

"Six  of  us  spent  two  days  getting  this  house  in 
order,"  Sister  Stone  went  on. 

"You  did!"  I  exclaimed,  lifting  my  face  and 
blinking  admiration  at  them  through  my  glasses. 
You  may  always  look  pleasanter  through  your  glasses 
than  you  can  over  the  top  of  them. 

"And  I  hope  such  a  task  will  never  be  laid  upon 
us  again.  Our  last  pastor's  wife  was  not  a  good 
housekeeper,"  she  said. 

I  made  a  sad  little  sound  through  my  nose 
in  memory  of  their  last  pastor's  wife,  and  let  it  go 
at  that,  though  I  could  have  made  a  few  searching 
remarks. 

It  is  true  that  some  preachers'  wives  are  not  good 
housekeepers,  but  it  is  not  a  singular  fact,  nor 
peculiar  to  them.  Other  women  fall  short  of  this 
perfection  with  less  excuse.  They  do  not  do  their 
own  work  or  nurse  their  own  children.  On  their 
busiest  day  and  in  addition  to  everything  else,  they 
are  not  obliged  to  dust  and  wipe  off  their  husbands, 
as  the  pastor's  wife  must  do,  lest  he  show  a  human 
grease  spot  on  the  lapel  of  his  coat  in  the  pulpit. 
Then  she  must  make  sure  the  poor  absent-minded 
soul,  being  in  the  spirit  on  this  Lord's  Day,  has  a 
clean  handkerchief  in  his  pocket  with  which  to  wipe 
his  brow  when  he  warms  up  in  the  course  of  his 
sermon.  She  must  also  get  the  children  off  to  Sun- 


MY    SON  47 

day  school.  She  must  prepare  dinner,  and  get  ready 
for  church,  and  be  there  in  her  accustomed  place  be 
fore  the  first  hymn  is  sung. 

Multiply  these  activities  by  the  fifty-two  Sabbaths 
in  the  year.  Double  that  to  count  the  Sunday-night 
services.  Add  all  the  Wednesday-night  prayer  meet 
ings,  and  you  receive  some  idea  of  what  the  day  of 
rest  means  to  a  preacher's  wife,  even  if  there  is  no 
quarterly  meeting  with  the  presiding  elder  on  her 
hands.  There  is  also  the  revival  season  of  six  weeks 
in  the  hottest  part  of  the  summer,  and  all  the  com 
pany  incident  to  that,  with  the  youngest  baby  getting 
his  teeth  and  keeping  her  up  at  night.  For  the  in 
fants  in  preachers'  families  always  do  cut  their  hard 
est  teeth  during  the  revival  season.  I  never  knew  a 
single  exception,  no  matter  if  he  was  due  according 
to  Nature  to  have  produced  them  during  the  previous 
month  of  January.  Even  the  grace  of  God  cannot 
give  such  a  woman  the  time  and  physical  strength 
to  be  a  good  housekeeper. 

I  have  sometimes  wished  in  my  bitterer  moments 
that  the  Lord  would  even  it  up  to  Methodist 
preachers'  wives  in  the  next  world  by  giving  them 
special  committee  privileges  to  investigate  the  house 
keeping  records  of  prominent  church  women  who 
know  so  much  and  tell  so  much  about  how  we  kept 
their  parsonages  in  this  one. 

After  Sister  Stone  and  her  cohorts  took  their  leave 
I  unpacked  and  put  my  things  in  place.  Then  I  sat 


48  MY    SON 

down  to  have  a  good  cry.  This  was  a  sort  of  bap 
tismal  habit  with  me  in  the  old  days.  Whenever  we 
moved  to  a  new  work  I  used  to  take  a  little  time  off 
to  weep  and  rock  myself  and  soothe  my  feelings, 
which  were  always  secretly  suffering  from  the 
change.  But  now  I  could  not  work  myself  up  to  the 
point  of  tears.  I  felt  queer  and  cold  and  strangely 
removed  from  these  old  griefs  and  associations. 
Maybe  it  was  my  age  and  Peter's  youth,  but  I  did 
not  feel  so  near  and  kin  to  pastoral  things. 

On  the  following  Sunday  morning  I  heard  Peter 
preach  for  the  first  time.  It  was  the  usual  little  vil 
lage  tombstone  of  a  church,  this  one  in  Brasstown, 
very  white  outside,  dark  and  sadly  toned  inside, 
as  a  grave  must  be  after  you  have  lain  in  it  a  long 
time. 

I  have  not  seen  much  in  my  life,  only  the  plain 
things.  My  eyes  have  not  been  cultivated  by  the 
splendors  of  this  present  world.  I  have  never  seen  a 
great  statue  or  a  great  painting.  But  I  have  often 
wondered  what  the  world  which  has  seen  all  these 
things  would  think  about  the  picture  of  a  Sunday- 
morning  congregation  somewhere  on  a  Methodist 
preacher's  circuit,  which  has  been  painted  by  a  really 
great  artist.  It  would  be  like  painting  the  Beati 
tudes.  Rows  upon  rows  of  candlelit  faces  in  the 
brown  gloom,  with  such  a  plain  altar  in  front  of 
them,  this  one  looking  so  meek;  that  one  blessed 


MY    SON  49 

from  having  mourned;  this  old  saint  wearing  his 
seeing-God  look  from  having  been  so  long  pure  in 
heart. 

No  matter  what  these  people  have  done  during 
the  week,  they  drop  that  secular  and  carnal  expres 
sion,  they  are  now  innocent  of  themselves.  It  is  very 
touching.  You  may  scarcely  distinguish  the  worst 
of  them  from  the  best  of  them.  The  man  seated 
there  at  the  end  of  the  bench  whose  very  hair  snarls, 
whose  face  is  marked  with  so  many  lines  of  human 
frightfulness,  seems  now  in  this  shadowy  peace  only 
to  have  been  weather-beaten  by  exposure  in  some 
harsh  windy  corner  of  life.  The  evil  in  him  shows 
for  what  evil  really  is,  a  sort  of  ugly  pathos.  This 
woman  on  the  other  side  of  the  aisle,  who  is  a  terma 
gant  in  her  own  house,  wears  an  air  of  repose,  as  if 
for  this  hour  she  has  been  eased  from  the  worry  and 
flurry  of  doing  her  duty,  right  or  wrong.  The  veriest 
gossip  of  them  all  looks  like  an  elderly  handmaiden 
of  the  Lord  ready  to  fall  upon  her  knees  and  wash 
the  feet  of  the  saints.  And  the  others,  the  plain 
script  of  the  congregation,  are  so  submissive,  so 
completely  at  rest  from  themselves  and  from  their 
neighbors. 

This  is  not  hypocrisy,  it  is  the  church;  the  effect 
of  its  silence  and  the  association  of  ideas  for  which 
it  stands  in  the  minds  of  these  people. 

I  came  early  that  morning  because  I  wanted  to 
have  a  look  at  Peter's  flock,  and  form  some  idea  of 


50 

the  sort  of  men  and  women  with  whom  he  would 
have  to  deal.  I  knew  that  somewhere  among  these 
tired  old  lambs  there  would  be  the  usual  difficult 
brethren,  known  to  each  other  but  not  to  the  new 
pastor.  I  have  inspected  too  many  congregations 
in  my  day  not  to  recognize  them  almost  by  sight. 
And  I  have  seen  a  hundred  like  the  one  inside  the 
doors  of  that  church — the  same  red-hot  stoves  down 
near  the  front,  the  same  little  glass  pitcher  and 
tumbler  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  pulpit.  I  chose 
a  seat  as  usual  at  the  end  of  one  of  the  amen  sec 
tions,  not  to  be  too  close  to  the  saints  nor  too  far 
from  the  sinners  to  see  what  was  going  on  without 
turning  my  head  inquisitively. 

I  saw  my  son  for  the  first  time  sitting  in  a  pulpit. 
Only  his  head  was  visible  above  the  top  of  the  altar. 
No  doubt  he  had  said  his  priest  prayer  before  I  came 
in.  I  know  of  no  other  act  of  worship  which  is  so 
definitely  and  almost  shockingly  performed  at  the 
expense  of  the  congregation  as  this  private  personal 
pulpit  prayer  of  the  Methodist  itinerant  preacher. 
He  enters  this  sacred  place,  and  with  his  back  to  the 
congregation  he  drops  upon  his  knees,  both  of  them, 
bends  his  body  to  a  right  angle,  covers  his  face  with 
his  hands,  and,  with  his  long  coat  tails  artlessly 
parted  behind,  he  makes  his  prayer  to  Almighty  God 
to  sustain  him  and  give  him  courage  to  preach  the 
word  with  power  to  these  people  behind  him.  It  is 
the  one  moment  in  his  life  when  he  publicly  outranks 


MY   SON  51 

his  congregation  by  holding  a  sort  of  official  council 
with  his  Lord  in  which  they  are  merely  the  topic 
under  discussion. 

I  settled  down  and  spread  out  my  skirts,  adjusted 
my  glasses  and  caught  sight  of  Brother  Stone  at  the 
end  of  the  same  bench  in  the  darkest  corner  of  the 
amen  section.  I  whispered  him  one  of  those  discreet 
nods  you  offer  in  the  prayerful  atmosphere  of  a 
church.  He  returned  it.  Then  he  seized  his  long 
white  beard  as  if  it  were  the  apron  of  his  face,  held 
it  back,  took  a  sort  of  hissing  aim  at  the  little  sand 
box  and  expectorated,  meaning  that  it  was  nearly 
time  to  sing  the  opening  hymn. 

I  have  noticed  this,  that  the  fiercer  male  saints  fre 
quently  use  tobacco,  while  the  vacillating,  hair-hung 
and  breeze-shaken  saint  is  almost  sure  to  be  an 
abstemious  man,  who  must  backslide  before  he  can 
indulge  in  the  use  of  tobacco,  or  even  coffee.  There 
fore,  the  fields  of  spiritual  battles  are  always  strewn 
with  these  wounded  who  must  be  restored  to  a  state 
of  mild  ecstasism  before  they  can  possibly  believe 
that  they  are  right  with  their  Lord. 

I  had  already  recognized  Brother  Stone  as  one  of 
the  fiercer  saints  who  would  never  backslide  or  even 
during  a  revival  admit  that  he  needed  a  "deeper  work 
of  grace."  He  was  a  standpatter  in  the  Lord's  vine 
yard,  and  usually  kept  one  foot  on  his  pastor's  neck. 
I  knew  that  his  relation  to  Peter  would  be  strictly 
doctrinal,  and  I  wondered  how  he  was  going  to  man- 


52  MY    SON 

age  Peter,  or  if  it  was  possible  that  Peter  might  man 
age  him.  This  was  a  maternal  flight  of  imagination. 
In  all  my  experience  I  had  never  known  such  a  thing 
to  happen. 

We  see  through  our  glass  darkly  when  we  look 
toward  the  future,  but  if  we  face  about  and  look 
toward  the  past,  it  is  awful  how  clearly  we  can  see. 
It  seemed  to  me  on  this  Sunday  morning  that  I  was 
looking  through  thirty  years  at  Peter's  congregation, 
and  I  saw  a  number  of  persons  there  who  would  have 
been  only  shadows  upon  my  glass  when  I  was  young. 

A  tall  man  attracted  my  attention.  He  was  seated 
on  the  front  bench,  holding  his  head  so  high  that  his 
brown  curly  beard  stuck  straight  out  in  front  of  him. 
His  hair  lay  back  from  his  lofty  brow  as  if  some  wind 
from  heaven  had  blown  it.  His  fine  dark  eyes  were 
lifted  in  a  sort  of  penitential  gaze  at  nothing  in  par 
ticular.  I  had  my  suspicions  the  moment  my  eyes 
rested  on  him.  Your  true  saint  never  looks  much 
like  one.  If  you  are  experienced  in  estimating  moral 
and  spiritual  values  in  a  congregation  you  discovered 
long  ago  that  the  publican  and  pharisee  sinner  never 
stays  put  in  the  back  of  the  church  where  he  belongs 
and  where  the  Scriptures  covering  his  case  so  plainly 
locate  him.  He  is  always  to  be  found  in  the  fore 
ground  of  the  sanctuary  with  nothing  but  the  altar 
rail  between  him  and  the  new  preacher,  waiting  to  be 
called  on  to  lead  in  prayer,  which  he  can  do  with 
more  humility  and  anguished  eloquence  than  a  plain 


MY   SON  53 

good  man  ever  commands.  But  if  he  leads  the  prayer 
the  congregation  will  not  follow.  It  plants  its  fore 
legs  and  waits  for  the  pastor  to  discover  his  mistake, 
because  it  usually  turns  out  that  he  is  a  professional 
bankrupt  in  business,  or  that  he  shaves  the  notes  of 
sinners,  or  that  he  has  done  something  to  the  widows 
and  orphans. 

I  hoped  Peter  would  not  call  on  this  man,  who 
looked  so  much  like  a  handsome  prayer,  to  lead  in 
prayer  until  he  knew  more  about  his  secular  reputa 
tion. 

No  one,  I  suppose,  knows  what  the  unpardonable 
sin  is.  I  have  sometimes  thought  every  man  chooses 
his  own  unpardonable  sin,  a  particular  temptation 
that  raises  the  spiritual  hair  on  the  spine  of  his  soul 
in  horror  at  the  very  thought  of  it.  For  I  remember 
how  many  different  kinds  of  unpardonable  sins  Wil 
liam  used  to  be  called  upon  to  pass  on.  But  there  is 
no  variation  at  all  in  what  a  Christian  community 
regards  as  unpardonable  transgressions.  There  are 
two:  If  a  man  is  dishonest,  however  successfully; 
if  he  is  immoral,  however  delicately  and  discreetly, 
they  will  have  none  of  him  in  the  sanctuary.  His 
prominence  there  is  an  offense.  They  will  listen  with 
sympathy  to  the  drunkard's  or  the  fighting  man's 
confessions,  they  will  back  him  up  to  the  very  throne 
of  grace  if  he  leads  the  prayer;  but  if  you  want  to 
quench  the  Spirit  in  your  church  call  on  a  note 
shaver  or  Lothario  to  pray.  They  will  endure  him 


54  MY   SON 

in  the  choir,  but  they  will  not  accept  him  on  his 
knees. 

There  is  another  equally  dangerous  person  in 
every  church,  who  never  sits  in  the  amen  corner, 
nor  conspicuously  near  the  front,  but  somewhere  in 
the  body  of  the  congregation,  like  a  concealed 
weapon.  It  is  impossible  to  locate  him  until  the  dust 
that  has  been  kicked  up  over  the  new  pastor  is  settled 
and  we  are  all  off  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to 
gether.  Then  he  comes  quietly  to  the  preacher  and 
puts  him  wise  to  everybody  in  the  church.  I  have 
known  more  than  one  church  to  die  spiritually  from 
the  bite  of  this  serpent  in  its  bosom  without  ever 
suspecting  him.  He  used  to  take  the  spiritual  spunk 
out  of  William  as  no  other  emanation  of  Satan  ever 
did,  because  he  invariably  left  him  bereft  of  com 
fortable  voluntary  faith  in  so  many  members  of  his 
congregation. 

I  may  have  been  surreptitiously  scouting  behind 
my  glasses  for  this  person  when  Peter  stood  up  and 
gave  out  the  first  hymn.  For  a  moment  my  vision 
was  blurred  by  the  tears  in  my  eyes,  by  the  prayer 
in  my  heart.  Then  I  saw  Peter  clearly,  not  pale 
with  the  sense  of  his  office,  a  tall  slender  young  man, 
dark  and  richly  colored,  very  handsome  and  perfectly 
at  his  ease. 

It  is  now  a  long  time  ago,  and  I  do  not  remember 
his  text.  He  took  it  much  as  he  would  have  taken 
off  his  hat  upon  entering  the  house,  because  this  is 


MY    SON  55 

the  custom,  and  because  he  would  not  need  it  in 
there.  Certainly  he  did  not  refer  to  this  text  again. 
And  you  would  not  have  been  able  to  prove  that  he 
had  one  by  the  discourse  that  followed.  It  fitted 
the  minds  of  his  congregation  like  a  good  working 
shirt.  He  mentioned  the  Lord  by  name  several  times, 
but  the  gist  of  what  he  said  meant  that  during  this 
year  we  should  all  get  together,  practice  sanity, 
health,  decency  and  honor  and  enjoy  our  virtues. 

The  people  were  pleased.  They  looked  refreshed, 
a  little  gay,  as  if  they  had  tasted  a  new  and  lively 
beverage  and  found  it  stimulating.  They  crowded 
round  Peter  to  shake  hands  after  the  service  was 
over.  Brother  Stone  slapped  him  on  the  back.  They 
all  were  animated,  and  wanted  him  to  know  how 
much  they  had  enjoyed  his  sermon.  But  I  missed 
the  woman  who  used  so  often  to  come  up  timidly 
with  tears  in  her  eyes  to  tell  William  that  she  had 
been  strengthened  in  her  faith ;  I  did  not  see  the  silent 
man  who  had  been  so  moved  that  he  merely  wrung 
William's  hand  and  passed  on. 

I  stood  aside  and  watched  my  son.  I  saw  him 
radiating  himself  among  these  people,  nothing  of 
the  priest  in  his  manner.  He  shook  hands  so  many 
times  and  so  violently  that  his  forelock  fell  down  on 
his  forehead,  making  him  handsomer  than  ever.  He 
was  flushed  with  this  exchange  of  happiness.  There 
was  nothing  wrong  in  any  of  it,  but  there  was  some 
thing,  not  present — something  very  old  and  patient, 


56  MY    SON 

that  never  changes.  I  hate  to  say  it,  but  I  had  the 
feeling  that  my  son  had  absolved  these  people  from 
both  their  sins  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  They  were  con 
siderably  lightened  of  burdens,  this  was  apparent, 
such  was  the  effect  of  his  sermon,  during  which  he 
had  not  referred  to  sin  or  to  faith  or  to  any  of  the 
ancient  stepping  stones  of  peace  with  God. 

I  heard  someone  say  as  we  came  out  that  they  had 
got  a  live  wire  at  last,  and  now  that  this  church 
would  do  something. 

This  prophecy  was  fulfilled.  That  church  cer 
tainly  did  do  something.  It  doubled  the  size  of  its 
congregations  in  three  months,  and  nearly  doubled 
the  assessments  under  Peter's  ministry,  which  was  a 
light  and  easy  ministry.  In  vain  did  Brother  Stone 
watch  and  wait  for  him  to  slip  up  on  a  doctrine,  show 
the  horns  and  forked  tail  of  a  heresy.  Peter  was  too 
far  removed  from  the  very  ground  where  doctrines 
and  heresies  are  to  be  found.  His  sermons  had  one 
purpose  so  far  as  I  could  see — to  cheer  you  up,  make 
you  forget  issues  that  might  confuse  your  conscience, 
and  to  build  up  the  church.  His  Sabbath  sermon 
was  sufficiently  secular  to  fit  your  weekdays.  They 
were  lectures  on  how  to  live  and  prosper  Monday, 
Tuesday,  Wednesday,  and  so  on. 

His  pastoral  visiting  was  like  that  of  a  candidate 
seeking  election.  He  was  full  of  good  will,  good 
works  and  a  sort  of  incorrigible  energy.  If  you  bit 


MY   SON  57 

him  with  one  of  your  meanest,  most  narrow-minded 
convictions,  he  would  not  assault  you  with  the  Scrip 
tures  for  doing  it.  He  allowed  you  to  keep  this  con 
viction  as  if  it  was  your  own  property  and  sacred  to 
you.  He  almost  cured  Stone  of  religious  rabies  in 
this  way. 

The  man  I  had  noticed  on  the  front  seat  that  first 
Sunday  was  named  Belote.  He  was  the  leading 
merchant  in  Brasstown  and  had  a  reputation  for 
doubtful  dealing.  Peter  never  reproved  him  for 
these  transgressions,  neither  would  he  permit  him 
to  figure  prominently  in  any  church  enterprise;  but 
he  constantly  mulched  Belote  for  food  to  feed  the 
poor,  and  clothes  wherewith  to  clothe  them.  No 
other  member  contributed  so  much  to  charity. 

"It  is  all  I  can  ask  Belote  to  do  with  propriety," 
he  told  me. 

He  was  shockingly  intimate  with  this  man. 

"Peter,"  I  said  to  him  one  day,  "do  you  think  you 
should  spend  so  much  time  in  Belote's  store?" 

"I  must,"  he  answered.  "Belote  thinks  of  some 
thing  wrong  to  do  every  day.  I  go  by  there  to  tell 
him  not  to  do  it." 

"And  does  he  heed  your  advice*?" 

"Oh,  yes;  but  the  trouble  is  he  has  thought  of 
something  else  by  the  time  I  come  next  time,"  he 
laughed. 

"He  is  a  sinner,  nothing  else,"  I  said  sharply. 


58  MY   SON 

"Comes  from  living  constantly  in  the  same  room 
with  his  emotions,"  said  Peter. 

"What  do  you  mean?' 

"Well,  in  the  old  days  Belote  could — no  doubt, 
would — have  qualified  as  an  ascetic  desert  monk, 
something  of  that  sort.  But  it  isn't  done  now,  and 
there  is  not  sufficient  opportunity  for  the  exercise 
of  his  emotional  temperament  in  the  common  lot 
along  with  the  rest  of  us,  so  he  takes  a  header  now 
and  then,"  he  laughed. 

"Soon  after  we  came  here  Belote  told  me  he  was 
thinking  of  killing  Tracy,"  Peter  went  on,  smiling. 

"Tracy!  What  could  he  have  against  Brother 
Tracy ?"  I  exclaimed. 

"Said  Tracy  had  talked  about  him." 

"He  probably  deserved  censure,"  I  answered. 

"Yes;  he  admitted  that.  I  persuaded  him  not 
to  kill  Tracy." 

"Peter,  this  sounds  very  cold-blooded." 

"No;  hot-blooded,"  he  returned.  "Then  he  ad 
vised  with  me  about  making  over  all  his  property 
to  his  wife  because  his  creditors  were  pressing  him. 
I  persuaded  him  not  to  do  that.  This  morning  I 
was  passing  his  store  in  a  great  hurry  going  to  a  com 
mittee  meeting  in  Stone's  office,  when  Belote  rushed 
out,  pale  with  excitement,  caught  hold  of  me  like 
a  drowning  man  and  led  me  back  to  his  desk.  He 
was  in  deep  trouble." 

"What  was  it?" 


MY   SON  59 

"He  said  he  was  thinking  of  geeting  a  divorce 
from  his  wife  and  what  did  I  think  of  it?' 

"The  wretch!"  I  exclaimed,  recalling  poor  little 
Mrs.  Belote,  who  was  the  mother  of  five  children. 

"He  said  he  could  not  endure  his  wife  any  longer. 
She  ragged  him.  He  had  no  peace.  I  advised  him 
not  to  sue  for  the  divorce." 

"He  could  not  get  it !" 

"So  I  told  him.  And  I  left  him  submissive  to  his 
marriage  vows.  But  next  week  it  will  be  something 
else.  So  you  see  how  it  is,"  Peter  concluded,  look 
ing  across  at  me,  smiling.  "I  must  visit  Belote  and 
look  after  him  as  a  physician  attends  an  incurable 
patient.  He  will  never  be  a  well  man  morally,  but 
I  can  prolong  his  usefulness  by  looking  after  him. 
He  has  just  contributed  enough  canned  goods  for  the 
Boy  Scout  camp." 

I  had  not  served  as  an  understudy  to  a  circuit  rider 
for  thirty  years  without  gaining  considerable  knowl 
edge  about  sinners  of  Belote's  type.  William  never 
compromised  the  gospel  in  their  favor.  He  held 
them  up  in  secret  and  exhorted  them;  he  called  on 
them  nearly  by  name  in  public  to  repent.  And  I 
have  seen  such  men  soundly  converted  who  lived 
godly  lives  afterward.  But  if  they  did  not  repent 
and  believe  he  turned  them  out  of  the  church,  even 
if  they  were  prominent  members  who  paid  liberally 
to  the  support  of  the  ministry.  He  said  it  was  as 
immoral  to  allow  them  to  purchase  respectability 


60  MY   SON 

when  they  were  not  respectable  with  contributions 
to  the  church,  as  it  was  to  take  any  other  kind  of 
bribe.  But  if  after  they  had  been  so  disciplined  they 
made  their  offering  in  meekness,  it  was  no  offense 
to  take  it.  I  thought  he  was  hard  on  these  back 
sliders.  I  used  to  insist  that  the  church  should  be 
a  sort  of  hospital  where  the  spiritually  halt,  lame 
and  blind  ought  to  be  received  and  nursed  back  to 
salvation. 

"Let  them  take  the  treatment  and  obey  the  rules 
of  it,  then,"  he  would  answer,  unmoved. 

Now  as  I  listened  to  Peter's  account  of  his  pastoral 
ministrations  to  Belote  I  found  myself  agreeing  with 
William's  sterner  view.  Peter  was  making  a  scien 
tific  application  of  the  gospel  to  his  case,  permitting 
him  to  bend  the  Scriptures  to  fit  his  carnal  nature. 
He  accepted  it  as  a  fact  that  Belote  could  not  live  up 
to  the  Christian  standard,  and  made  what  use  he 
could  of  him  in  this  condition  to  further  his  own 
pastoral  plans.  He  was  honest  in  this  point  of  view. 
But  there  was  nothing  in  Peter  that  inspired  him  to 
stand  up,  pale  to  the  lips,  with  the  sweat  of  anguish 
on  his  brow  and  call  out  to  his  people,  "Repent! 
Repent !  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand !" 

He  wore  a  sack  coat,  he  had  a  good  color,  and  his 
preaching  consisted  in  encouraging  everybody  to  go 
ahead  and  do  the  best  he  could  under  the  circum 
stances,  which,  if  you  notice,  are  always  furnished 
by  the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil. 


MY   SON  61 

I  should  have  been  proud  of  him  and  satisfied, 
since  for  so  many  years  I  had  craved  a  little  ease 
ment  from  the  sterner  doctrines  of  salvation.  But 
I  was  not  proud  of  him.  I  was  terribly  uneasy  about 
him  and  his  water-and-sand  gospel.  You  may  not 
be  able  to  live  up  to  them,  but  your  standards  of 
righteousness  ought  not  to  vary  or  be  diminished. 

I  continued  to  sit  prominently  near  the  front  in 
the  church  at  Brasstown,  but  in  my  heart  I  felt  far 
to  the  rearward.  Sometimes  when  Peter  was  preach 
ing  one  of  his  cheerful  prancing  sermons  I  used  to 
wonder  what  would  happen  if  suddenly  I  stood  up, 
waved  him  down  and  called  out:  "Tell  them,  'Seek 
ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  .  .  .  and  all  these 
things  shall  be  added  unto  you!'  Things,  Peter! 
Teach  them  the  difference  between  mere  things  and 
the  kingdom  of  heaven !" 

I  reckon  he  would  have  sent  for  the  doctor.  He 
did  stop  in  the  midst  of  his  sermon  when  Mrs.  Bux- 
ton  shouted.  She  was  a  simple  old  woman  who  had 
acquired  the  habit  of  shouting  in  her  younger  days, 
when  this  was  not  regarded  as  a  breach  of  good  man 
ners  before  the  Lord.  And  she  would  do  it  upon 
the  slightest  rise  in  spiritual  temperature  during  a 
service.  On  this  Sabbath  evening  she  was  sitting 
as  usual  near  the  altar,  her  little  old  gray  head  and 
withered  face  lifted  like  a  candle  against  the  wall. 
And  she  was  listening  no  doubt  a  trifle  dizzily  to 
what  Peter  was  saying  about  the  Golden  Rule  of 


62  MY   SON 

God  toward  man,  when  she  caught  sight  of  the 
smiling  faces  of  the  congregation.  She  looked  round, 
startled,  much  as  you  do  when  you  have  missed  the 
point,  saw  this  glow  of  appreciation  all  about  her 
and  mistook  it  for  spiritual  animation.  Instantly 
she  bobbed  up  and  out  into  the  aisle  with  a  sort 
of  cataleptic  spring,  threw  her  hands  over  her  head 
and  shouted  in  a  high  treble  voice  "G-1-o-r-y !" 

She  sailed  down  one  aisle  and  up  the  other,  clap 
ping  her  hands  and  letting  out  one  of  these  little 
cambric-needle  shrieks  at  rhythmic  intervals. 

When  someone  began  to  shout  in  the  old  days  the 
preacher  was  supposed  himself  to  be  too  much  in  the 
spirit  to  stop  preaching.  Rather,  he  instinctively 
preached  louder,  a  circumstance  which  invariably 
increased  the  emotional  energy  of  the  person  shout 
ing.  It  was  not  until  Mrs.  Buxton  arrived  in  front 
of  the  pulpit  that  she  realized  her  pastor  had  deserted 
her.  Peter  was  standing  like  an  incensed  statue  with 
his  eyes  damningly  fixed  upon  the  clock  on  the  op 
posite  wall.  She  paused,  stared  at  him  like  a  little 
old  bird  whose  feathers  have  fallen,  whose  wings 
drag  in  the  dust.  Then  she  drifted  backward  into 
the  nearest  seat,  mortally  wounded  in  her  spiritual 
pride. 

This  was  another  feather  in  Peter's  cap;  every 
thing  was,  though  I  doubt  if  it  was  to  be  a  jewel  in 
his  crown,  quenching  a  good  old  woman  whose 
ladder  to  God  was  her  own  emotions.  But  we 


MY   SON  63 

heard  that  she  frequently  disturbed  revival  services 
and  that  everybody  was  glad  to  have  her  quelled 
and  permanently  seated  before  the  revival  season 
began. 

Peter  had  his  Brasstown  congregation  by  the  hair 
of  the  head;  that  is  to  say,  he  reorganized  every 
department  of  the  church  along  modern  lines. 
He  worked  under  cover  through  Sister  Stone  to 
expand  the  Women's  Missionary  Society.  He 
whipped  all  the  men  into  a  laymen's  movement, 
which  was  to  do  everything,  from  keeping  the  town 
clean  and  electing  the  next  mayor  to  providing  extra 
funds  for  the  personal  needs  of  the  church,  including 
lectures  and  social  receptions.  He  established  a 
credit-and-reward  system  in  the  Sunday  school  which 
doubled  the  attendance  and  excited  competition  and 
cupidity  in  the  minds  of  the  young  to  such  an  ex 
tent  that  the  standards  of  Biblical  scholarship  were 
greatly  advanced.  Under  his  leadership  the  Metho 
dist  church  became  at  once  the  most  progressive 
enterprise  in  the  town.  It  rocked  as  if  a  boom  had 
struck  it.  But  this  was  not  a  spiritual  boom,  there 
was  no  hallelujah  note  in  the  fuss  it  made. 

I  tried  not  to  be  critical  of  Peter,  but  it  seemed 
to  me  he  was  substituting  secular  methods  for  the 
work  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  I  have  always  resented  the 
old  horned  stewards  in  Methodist  churches,  who 
made  it  their  Christian  duty  to  nag  and  obstruct  the 
pastor;  but  if  I  had  been  such  a  one  in  this  church 


64  MY   SON 

at  Brasstown  I  should  have  laid  a  restraining  hand 
on  Peter.  On  the  contrary,  his  stewards  were  secret 
ly  boastful  about  the  way  he  emptied  the  other 
churches  in  town  when  he  preached.  And  it  was 
a  bit  stirring  to  see  half  of  the  congregation  get  up 
and  walk  out  on  Communion  Sunday,  because  they 
were  Baptists  and  must  avoid  the  embarrassment  of 
having  the  sacrament  offered  them. 

We  had  been  on  this  work  nearly  two  months  be 
fore  Job's  messengers  began  to  arrive.  I  have  always 
thought  these  servants,  who  brought  Job  bad  news, 
were  the  most  typical-of-man  features  of  that  story. 
Certainly  I  never  knew  a  preacher  who  was  not  af 
flicted  by  them. 

One  very  cold  day  in  December  I  was  sitting  in 
the  corner  beside  the  fire  in  the  parlor  knitting  a 
muffler.  I  was  trying  to  finish  it  for  Peter  before 
the  following  Saturday,  when  he  was  to  go  to  his 
first  appointment  at  Suetally.  He  was  seated  reared 
back  very  comfortably  in  the  parsonage  morris  chair, 
directly  in  front  of  the  fire.  And  he  was  reading 
Kenan's  Life  of  Jesus.  I  felt  the  same  sense  of  dis 
approval  that  I  used  to  have  when  I  caught  him  when 
he  was  a  boy  reading  doubtful  fiction.  I  knew  noth 
ing  of  this  man,  Renan,  except  that  he  was  a  French 
man.  I  admire  the  French  people.  I  believe  that 
they  are  thrifty,  brilliant  and  exceedingly  brave, 
but  I  have  never  been  able  to  pin  my  faith  to  their 
godliness.  The  things  I  have  heard  about  them  are 


MY   SON  65 

very  fine,  but  not  pious,  and  frequently  not  moral. 
I  could  not  help  thinking  that  what  Matthew  or 
Mark  or  one  of  the  other  apostles  had  to  tell  of  the 
life  of  Christ  would  be  more  serviceable  to  Peter 
as  a  preacher.  I  was  trying  to  decide  how  to  broach 
the  subject  to  him  when  I  heard  a  sort  of  muttered 
disturbance  in  front  of  the  house.  I  glanced  through 
the  window  and  saw  an  enormous  old  man  taking 
himself  carefully  out  of  the  buggy  and  at  the  same 
time  exhorting  the  skittish-eared  mule  which  was 
hitched  to  it,  to  "Whoa!" 

He  was  about  six  feet  in  height,  most  of  this  being 
in  the  length  of  his  legs,  which  were  astonishingly 
thin  considering  the  bulk  of  his  body.  He  wore  a 
black  slouch  hat,  and  gray  clothes;  his  coat  had 
short  frock  tails  which  stood  out  from  him  as  if 
they  did  not  like  him,  though  they  had  been  associ 
ated  with  him  for  a  long  time.  He  was  clean  shaven, 
and  his  chin  stuck  out  ominously. 

I  had  never  seen  him  before,  but  I  recognized  him 
instantly.  He  looked  and  walked  like  a  man  em 
powered  by  divine  Providence  with  all  the  authority 
of  misfortune. 

Peter,  who  had  also  seen  him  by  this  time,  laid 
aside  his  book  and  went  to  receive  him  at  the  front 
door. 

I  snatched  up  Kenan's  Life  of  Jesus  and  hid  it  in 
my  work  basket.  You  cannot  be  too  particular 
about  things  like  that. 


66  MY    SON 

I  heard  Peter  admit  that  he  was  the  new  preacher, 
and  the  thunderous  voice  of  our  visitor  announce 
that  he  was  Altimus  Sparks. 

"I  reckon  you  have  heard  of  me,"  he  added  in 
the  retching  tones  of  a  man  who  is  taking  off  his 
overcoat  and  wheezing  from  the  exertion. 

We  had  heard  of  him !  Every  man  has  his  volun 
tary  biographers,  who  publish  the  record  of  his  deeds. 
We  knew  that  Brother  Sparks  was  chairman  of  the 
board  of  stewards  in  the  church  at  Suetally.  We 
had  heard  that  he  was  as  innocent  of  salvation  as  a 
heathen,  but  he  was  the  heavyweight  champion  of 
the  Methodist  doctrines  in  that  community.  He  had 
never  been  defeated  in  an  argument,  and  he  held  the 
belt,  especially  on  infant  baptism. 

Peter,  who  is  a  tall,  well-set-up  man,  looked  small 
and  insignificant  beside  him  when  they  came  in  to 
gether.  I  told  Brother  Sparks  how  glad  I  was  to 
meet  him  at  last,  which  is  always  a  safe  prevarica 
tion,  even  morally,  because  you  do  it  in  charity  that 
you  may  not  wound  the  sensibilities  of  the  person 
whom  you  are  not  glad  to  see. 

He  said  the  usual  things  in  reply,  and  hoped  I 
was  "well,  ma'am."  Then  he  sat  down  in  the  morris 
chair,  which  groaned  dangerously.  Suddenly  the 
whole  room  seemed  crowded.  Peter  had  to  edge 
his  way  round  to  a  small  chair  in  the  opposite 
corner. 

Sparks  was  a  fat  man,  whose  countenance  was  not 


MY   SON  67 

confined  to  his  mere  face.  He  seemed  to  look  at  you 
from  the  whole  expanse  of  his  broad  shirt  front.  His 
coat  lay  back  from  it  like  the  lips  of  an  enormous 
grin  at  your  expense. 

He  wagged  us  a  measuring  glance  ornamented 
with  an  intimate  grin.  Then  he  told  me  he  hoped 
I  would  pick  out  a  wife  for  Peter  as  soon  as  possible. 
"Unmarried  preacher  is  as  dangerous  as  a  torpedo 
in  a  church,"  he  haw-hawed.  And  having  discharged 
this  blunderbuss  he  informed  Peter  that  he  had  come 
to  see  him  about  the  church  at  Suetally. 

He  said  this  church  was  on  its  last  legs.  It  was 
located  in  a  valley  between  two  mountains  and  the 
high  waters  during  the  winter  and  spring  rendered 
it  inaccessible.  But  this  was  not  the  worst.  It  was 
in  a  community  of  Hard-shell  Baptists ! 

I  have  noticed  this,  that  in  mountainous  regions 
where  there  is  a  great  deal  of  superfluous  water 
Primitive  Baptists  always  predominate.  The  nature 
of  the  country,  the  torrential  rains,  seem  to  produce 
them  as  it  does  certain  plants  and  water  fowls. 
There  is  a  sort  of  laurel  wreath  of  them  which  ex 
tends  in  this  section  from  the  high  crests  of  Ken 
tucky  through  the  Cumberland  Mountains  of  Tenes- 
see,  and  all  over  the  foothills  of  the  Blue  Ridge  in 
Georgia  and  Northern  Alabama.  Neither  Methodist 
churches  nor  Presbyterians  flourish  in  these  places, 
and  there  is  practically  no  such  thing  as  an  Episco 
palian.  I  have  often  wondered  whether  the  weather 


68  MY    SON 

and  the  topography  of  the  country  had  anything  to 
do  with  the  creed  we  choose.  It  is  a  fearsome 
thought. 

Brother  Sparks  went  on  telling  Peter  about  the 
Primitive  Baptists,  who  were  so  many  thorns  in  the 
side  of  the  church  at  Suetally;  how  they  would  not 
permit  their  children  to  attend  Sabbath  school ;  how, 
when  the  Methodists  had  a  revival  and  stirred  things 
up  and  got  an  altar  full  of  penitents  converted,  these 
people  invariably  started  a  protracted  meeting 
preaching  their  doctrines,  and  the  upshot  was  that 
they  herded  these  new-born  souls  through  the  bap 
tismal  waters  of  the  nearest  stream  into  their  own 
church ! 

I  hoped  Peter  would  show  some  of  the  natural  in 
stincts  of  a  Methodist  shepherd  over  this  account  of 
the  marauding  Baptists  at  Suetally.  But  he  did  not, 
which  troubled  me.  You  cannot  be  too  tolerant  and 
be  anything  else  very  definite.  The  meekest  Metho 
dist  preacher  I  have  ever  known  would  show  fight 
when  provoked  by  a  Baptist.  He  will  lie  down,  like 
the  lion  and  the  lamb  together,  with  a  Presbyterian 
or  an  Episcopalian,  if  so  be  that  the  latter  will  keep 
him  such  close  company,  but  he  will  lash  out  at  a 
Baptist.  His  Christianity  becomes  a  sort  of  doc 
trinal  fierceness.  One  of  the  strongest  sermons  I 
ever  heard  William  preach  was  on  the  broad  and 
catholic  meaning  of  the  word  "baptist."  He  was 
equally  imbued  with  power  when  he  preached  on 


MY    SON  69 

the  doctrine  of  "election."  But  he  would  rest  peace 
fully  on  his  strictly  evangelical  texts  in  a  town  full 
of  Presbyterians  and  never  lift  his  voice  against  "pre 
destination." 

I  have  sometimes  wondered  if  this  antagonism 
which  Methodists  feel  toward  Baptists  does  not 
spring  from  the  class  distinction  which  the  latter 
make  when  they  practice  close  communion.  We  all 
do  it  who  can  in  the  world,  but  this  is  the  only 
church  which  does  it  openly  and  honestly  before 
the  Lord.  I  reckon  many  a  Baptist  has  suffered 
from  being  obliged  for  conscience'  sake  to  behave 
this  way. 

Personally  I  never  could  see  any  great  difference 
between  the  pivotal  doctrines  of  damnation  in  any 
of  the  churches.  It  comes  to  the  same  thing,  whether 
you  are  not  elected  to  eternal  life  or  are  predestined 
to  damnation,  or  become,  as  the  Methodists  believe, 
an  apostate. 

What  worried  me  was  that  Peter  never  seemed 
to  clinch  down  and  hold  views  that  sternly  divided 
him  from  the  world.  He  did  make  a  raid  during 
this  year  on  the  Baptists  at  Suetally.  He  took  fifty 
of  the  younger  ones  into  his  church,  but  it  was  on 
easy  terms,  and  due  to  his  personal  popularity  rather 
than  to  any  deep  work  of  grace  in  them.  Brother 
Sparks  was  gratified,  but  he  was  not  satisfied.  He 
was  himself  a  Hard-shell  Methodist,  and  he  missed 
the  bones  of  our  doctrines  in  Peter's  sermons.  He 


70  MY    SON 

used  to  appear  at  regular  intervals  at  the  parsonage 
enormous  and  saturnine,  to  discuss  emersion,  free 
will,  and  other  issues  of  contention  between  him  and 
the  Suetally  Baptists.  He  was  a  hungry  man.  And 
Peter  nourished  him  in  tolerance,  which  was  like 
offering  Sparks  a  stone  when  he  asked  for  the  blood 
of  his  enemies. 

"The  question  is  not  whether  you  are  baptized  one 
way  or  the  other,"  he  told  Sparks  one  day,  "and 
it  is  not  whether  you  have  an  emotional  experience 
or  not.  Emotions  are  the  mere  flowers  of  the  animal 
temperament" — he  used  the  word  animal ! — "which 
bloom  quickly  and  die  quickly.  It  is  unnatural  and 
not  safe  to  live  according  to  your  transient  hallelu 
jahs,  because  you  cannot,  and  the  effort  to  do  so 
leads  to  hypocrisy  and  self-deceit." 

When  you  are  not  very  good  yourself,  being 
called  to  the  secular  life  from  birth,  you  do  want 
your  pastor  to  be  a  holy  man.  He  represents  your 
vicarious  holdings  in  salvation.  Sparks,  who  was 
sitting  with  Peter  on  the  front  porch  with  his  legs 
elevated  and  his  feet  resting  on  the  balusters, 
brought  them  to  the  floor  with  a  thump.  He  leaned 
forward  in  his  chair  and  stared  at  Peter  as  if 
he  had  suddenly  discovered  that  there  was  no 
great  difference  nor  distance  between  him  and  this 
man,  spiritually  speaking.  And  he  was  disap 
pointed. 

"The  important  thing  in  your  religious  life,"  Peter 


MY   SON  71 

went  on,  unconscious  of  this  diminishing  gaze,  "is 
to  shed  the  sins  you  inevitably  accumulate  in  the 
business  of  living,  endeavor  to  harm  no  man,  do 
your  duty  as  it  really  is,  not  as  you  wish  to  see  it, 
render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Csesar's,  and 
keep  at  it!" 

This  old  ruffian  Methodist  never  came  again  to 
commune  with  his  pastor.  It  was  significant.  He 
had  been  seeking  the  heights  in  his  perverted  way, 
and  he  had  found  Peter  on  the  level. 

Sometimes  I  honored  my  son  for  his  invincible 
honesty,  for  the  cool  clarity  of  his  mind,  the  sim 
plicity  with  which  he  performed  every  good  office 
of  his  calling,  as  if  this  was  a  matter  of  business.  His 
temper  was  always  serene.  He  never  suffered  from 
moods  of  spiritual  depression.  He  prepared  his  ser 
mons  carefully,  much  as  teachers  prepare  lectures. 
And  I  discovered  that  he  also  prepared  the  prayers 
he  prayed  for  his  people  in  church  on  Sunday.  These 
were  very  conservative  petitions.  It  seemed  that  he 
did  not  want  to  inconvenience  the  Lord  to  change 
his  plans  by  granting  anything  unusual  or  out  of 
the  fixed  order  of  things.  I  missed  that  childish  and 
beautiful  valor  of  faith  which  inspires  men  to  ask 
the  humanly  impossible  of  their  Heavenly  Father — 
and  get  it.  This  is  my  point.  They  do  get  it !  I 
could  not  imagine  Peter  taking  his  umbrella  to  church 
during  a  drought  and  praying  for  rain.  It  seemed  to 


72  MY    SON 

me  that  he  never  asked  for  anything  which  the  Lord 
had  not  granted  or  arranged  for  from  the  beginning 
when  he  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  marked 
off  the  zones  and  seasons  and  established  order  in 
everything  except  the  heart  of  man,  which  is  the 
one  place  where  creation  is  still  going  on. 

The  brethren  in  the  church  at  Brasstown  furnished 
a  curious  commentary  on  the  quality  of  Peter's 
prayers.  When  he  began  to  preach  there  they 
shouted  their  amens  as  usual,  but  they  gradually 
ceased  to  do  this.  It  is  only  when  you  have  the  faith 
and  courage  to  pray  for  that  which  is  beyond  the 
bounds  of  human  reason  that  the  brethren  hunch 
the  Lord  with  groans  and  amens.  The  reasonable 
ness  of  Peter  on  his  knees  compelled  me  to  fear  that 
he  did  not  really  believe  in  the  power  of  prayer.  If 
we  are  entirely  reasonable  we  must  live  like  brutes, 
whose  instincts  are  the  result  of  experience  well  rea 
soned  out.  But  if  we  are  at  all  spiritual-minded  we 
must  take  the  sublime  risks  of  surviving  somewhere 
above  the  plane  of  rationalism. 

I  was  the  more  concerned  for  Peter  because  of  his 
sincerity.  He  was  an  honest  man,  but  no  priest. 
He  had  not  received  his  sight,  but  he  walked  without 
fear  in  places  where  saints  fear  to  tread.  I  prayed 
that  the  Lord  would  forgive  his  presumption.  And 
I  was  in  earnest  about  it.  A  mother  kneeling  before 
the  throne  of  grace  is  no  puling  saint,  if  she  is  a  saint 
at  all.  I  was  willing  that  Peter  should  be  tried, 


MY   SON  73 

humbled  and  chastened  in  his  spirit,  but  I  reckon 
every  prayer-bearing  angel  in  heaven  knew  my  posi 
tion  on  this  matter,  and  that  I  would  never  stand 
meekly  by  and  see  my  son  destroyed  because  the 
mind  and  learning  of  these  times  had  enveloped  him 
and  obscured  his  vision  of  the  way,  the  truth  and 
the  life.  Peter  had  some  vague  sense  of  my  con 
cern  for  him,  but  he  atrtibuted  it  to  my  old-fashioned 
notions,  and  got  on  very  well  with  me  by  evading 
issues. 

We  are  queer  creatures.  One  of  the  conditions 
of  life  in  this  world,  I  believe,  is  that  we  cannot 
be  satisfied.  I  used  to  wish  for  a  little  carnal  rest, 
not  the  kind  you  have  when  for  a  moment  you  "sit 
and  sing  your  soul  away  to  everlasting  bliss,"  which 
was  always  too  high  an  experience  to  be  comfortable ; 
but  I  longed  for  human  repose  in  the  things  that  are 
here  and  now.  I  might  be  attending  to  the  plain 
duties  involved  in  securing  this  repose,  like  putting 
my  house  in  order  or  darning  our  Sabbath  clothes, 
but  I  never  could  be  quite  at  peace  knowing  that 
William  was  in  the  study  across  the  hall  or  pacing 
up  and  down  behind  the  house  wrestling  in  prayer 
for  the  "witness  of  the  Spirit,"  because  I  never  did 
know  whether  he  would  get  it  or  not,  and  that  kept 
my  heart  aching  and  anxious  for  him.  Now  I  found 
myself  worrying  because  Peter  did  not  seem  to  feel 
the  "burden  of  souls."  I  was  homesick  for  the  past. 


74  MY   SON 

I  longed  for  one  of  those  old-fashioned  revivals 
where  the  congregation  dwells  in  a  sort  of  penitential 
anguish  on  this  chorus  of  the  opening  hymn: 

Lord,  revive  us,  Lord  revive  us! 

All  our  strength  must  come  from  Thee. 
Lord,  revive  us!  Lord  re-vi-ve  us  a- gain! 

I  used  to  get  tearful  sometimes  when  I  thought  of 
those  scenes  back  there  in  the  old  candlelit  churches. 
Then  I'd  go  out  in  the  yard  and  look  up  and  down 
that  street  in  Brasstown  and  wonder  if  I  ought  not 
to  go  and  see  somebody  in  affliction,  or  who  was  sick ; 
but  there  was  a  committee  for  doing  every  single 
Christian  thing  in  Peter's  church,  and  I  was  not  on 
the  one  that  dealt  with  the  sick  and  afflicted.  Then 
maybe  Sister  Stone,  who  lived  next  door,  would 
come  out  on  her  porch  and  hail  me  and  want  to  know 
if  I  was  well  to-day. 

I  have  noticed  this,  that  nobody  ever  asks  a  man 
if  he  is  well ;  but  one  woman  invariably  asks  another 
woman  if  she  is.  My  health  was  always  good,  but 
I  did  not  feel  well.  My  immortal  spirit  seemed  to 
be  run  down,  and  I  had  to  resist  the  temptation  to 
tell  Sister  Stone  that  I  was  not  very  well,  but  just 
able  to  be  up  and  about.  Then  she  would  ask  me 
to  come  over  and  have  some  ice  cream  if  it  was  a  hot 
afternoon.  Or,  if  it  was  in  the  morning  she  would 
fly  back  in  the  house  and  reappear  with  some  toma- 


MY    SON  75 

toes,  which  she  insisted  upon  my  taking  because  my 
plants  had  not  done  well  and  she  had  discovered  that 
Peter  liked  tomatoes.  They  were  all  kind  and 
thoughtful.  But  it  seemed  to  me  I  had  few  oppor 
tunities  to  practice  my  own  kinder  virtues. 

I  remember  a  rosebush  in  the  back  yard  of  this 
parsonage  at  Brasstown.  It  must  have  been  about 
my  age,  as  the  life  of  a  rose  is  reckoned,  elderly,  and 
somewhat  amorphous  as  to  shape,  with  its  branches 
sprawling  like  a  wide  skirt  on  the  ground.  I  be 
came  attached  to  this  old  bush.  I  had  come  in  the 
winter  season  and  could  not  tell  what  kind  of  rose 
it  was,  as  you  do  not  know  this  woman  or  that  one 
until  you  see  her  doing  her  daily,  not  her  Sunday 
deeds.  In  February  I  cut  away  the  dead  branches 
and  tied  the  others  up,  dug  round  the  roots  and  fixed 
it  up  according  to  the  directions  in  the  Scripture  for 
the  barren  fig  tree.  I  used  to  slip  out  there  every 
day  and  pick  the  bugs  off  and  watch  the  buds  swell. 
Then  suddenly  one  morning  late  in  May  after  a 
warm  rain  the  night  before,  I  found  it  covered  with 
a  rich  dark  red  mass  of  old-fashioned  velvet  roses. 
I  had  not  seen  one  for  years.  The  variety  is  prac 
tically  extinct,  like  certain  kinds  of  people. 

I  was  reduced  to  that,  you  understand,  feeling 
kin  to  an  old  bush  in  the  back  yard  which  must  have 
been  planted  there  about  the  time  I  started  out  as 
a  Methodist  itinerant's  wife. 

As  the  year  drew  to  a  close  at  Brasstown  I  thought 


76  MY   SON 

I  felt  a  reaction  in  the  church  toward  Peter.  Some 
of  the  older  members  grew  strangely  quiet.  Now 
and  then  one  of  them  looked  at  him  queerly  as  you 
do  at  a  genial  and  successful  promoter  who  has 
done  much  for  your  town  but  who  is  about  to  pass  on 
to  other  fields  leaving  you  to  handle  the  best  way 
you  can  the  big  business  he  has  started,  which  has 
been  a  very  expensive  business,  and  you  knew  very 
well  that  he  made  you  hit  a  pace  that  you  cannot 
keep  up,  not  if  you  were  redeemed  and  baptized 
every  six  months. 

In  short,  I  think  they  began  to  realize  with  dolor 
ous  misgivings  that  the  showing  Peter  would  make 
at  Conference  might  have  the  effect  of  increasing 
their  assessments  next  year,  besides  giving  them  a 
reputation  for  being  progressive,  which  they  doubted 
if  they  could  keep  up  even  under  his  leadership.  I 
thought  they  were  singularly  resigned,  however,  to 
the  notion  that  he  would  not  be  back,  but  would  un 
doubtedly  receive  a  much  better  appointment. 
Everybody  liked  him,  but  the  old  financial  heads 
wagged  when  they  computed  what  it  had  cost  them 
to  keep  him.  They  figured  shrewdly  that  they  could 
do  very  well  spiritually  with  a  less  expensive 
preacher.  I  thought  myself  that  this  church  would 
be  years  recovering  from  Peter's  executive  ability, 
and  that  if  he  should  be  sent  back  he  would  find  a 
much  more  difficult  proposition  on  his  hands. 


MY    SON  77 

Fortunately  he  was  moved  and  given  a  much  bet* 
ter  appointment.  But  I  have  written  at  length  on 
his  first  year  in  the  itinerancy,  because  of  what  hap 
pened  afterward. 


CHAPTER  III 

I  NEED  not  have  been  so  concerned  about  facing 
the  old-fashioned  saints  on  the  backwoods  cir 
cuits  with  Peter  and  his  newfangled  ministry.  You 
cannot  keep  an  up-to-date  preacher  on  a  circuit  far 
out  in  the  hills  where  Providence  measures  the  rain 
and  the  seasons  according  to  his  wisdom,  not  accord 
ing  to  your  particular  needs,  and  where  the  people 
walk  with  a  stoop  as  if  they  said  with  their  very 
backs,  "Thy  will  be  done !"  Their  circuit  rider  must 
be  a  little  run  down  intellectually  from  not  being 
able  to  afford  the  latest  books  by  the  highest  critics 
on  the  Scriptures.  He  must  be  sufficiently  weather- 
beaten  spiritually  to  prove  how  close  kin  he  is  to 
eternal  things  and  just  the  word. 

Peter  was  no  such  preacher.  I  do  not  say  that  the 
training  he  had  fitted  him  for  a  closer  walk  with 
God,  but  it  certainly  did  fit  him  for  serving  a  differ 
ent  class  of  people  altogether.  It  seemed  that  the 
Conference  thought  so,  for  he  was  sent  to  an  up-and- 
doing  church  in  an  up-and-doing  town  the  next  year. 
Brasstown  was  the  last  glimpse  we  had  of  the  back 
woods  gospel  area  in  the  Methodist  itinerancy.  And 
Suetally  Chapel  was  the  only  out-and-out  country 
church  he  ever  served. 

78 


MY    SON  T9 

We  heard  sad  news  from  this  church  the  follow 
ing  summer.  The  last  of  the  fifty  converts  Peter 
had  filched  from  the  Hard-shell  Baptists  had  got 
themselves  properly  immersed  and  gone  back  into 
the  church  of  their  fathers  and  of  the  streams  and 
hills  of  that  section!  There  are  certain  Scriptures, 
I  have  often  thought,  which  should  not  be  used  ex 
cept  in  extreme  cases,  as  you  resort  to  a  dangerous 
and  desperate  remedy  for  a  patient  who  is  about  to 
die,  anyhow.  Even  then  they  ought  not  to  be  spoken 
at  people  from  the  pulpit,  and  you  would  be  barely 
justified  in  recalling  them  secretly  and  sadly  in  your 
heart,  that  you  may  work  the  harder  and  pray  the 
more  earnestly  that  they  do  not  apply  in  the  case 
of  this  man  or  that  woman  whose  spiritual  condition 
is  very  bad.  The  twenty-second  verse  of  the  second 
chapter  of  Second  Peter  always  seemed  to  me  most 
awful  and  the  least  quotable.  I  doubt  if  anybody 
but  an  old  fisherman  disciple  who  had  been  accus 
tomed  all  his  life  to  ugly  sights  and  disagreeable 
smells  would  have  used  such  a  figure  of  speech  to 
convey  a  disastrous  truth.  But  I  have  observed  this 
— not  to  paraphrase  what  Saint  Peter  said  at  all — 
that  a  man  wit1'*  a  Baptist-made  mind  will  return 
to  his  doctrint  every  time.  He  will  do  it  in  his 
secret  heart,  even  if  you  are  able  to  keep  his  name 
on  the  roll  of  your  Methodist  church.  You  may 
wrestle  in  prayer  for  his  immortal  soul  at  your  altar, 
and  you  may  have  the  joy  of  seeing  him  converted 


80  MY   SON 

there;  but  when  it  comes  to  signing  up  his  member 
ship  contract  to  live  and  die  in  grace,  our  vows  do 
not  fit  the  awful  strictness  of  his  mind;  the  little 
water  we  pour  on  his  head  is  not  enough  to  satisfy 
the  cleansing  symbolism  of  a  complete  baptism.  He 
wants  to  be  dipped.  This  is  not  foolishness.  Noth 
ing  is  foolish  which  satisfies  a  man's  conscience  about 
assuming  so  great  an  obligation. 

I  warned  Peter  that  there  would  be  some  back 
firing  in  this  church  at  Suetally  when  these  recently 
redeemed  Baptists  whom  he  had  taken  into  it  realized 
how  lightly  and  insufficiently  they  had  been  merely 
sprinkled  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  But  he  always 
left  the  dead  to  bury  their  dead  on  the  work  from 
which  he  had  passed.  His  whole  mind  and  attention 
was  fixed  on  the  church  where  he  was  the  present 
pastor  in  charge.  His  only  comment  upon  the  disaster 
at  Suetally  was  that  probably  the  preacher  who  fol 
lowed  him  had  fallen  under  the  influence  of  Brother 
Sparks  and  had  stirred  up  the  animus  of  the  com 
munity  by  preaching  doctrinal  sermons. 

His  advancement  in  the  Conference  was  remark 
able  when  you  consider  the  military  system  under 
which  our  church  is  governed,  a  system  complicated 
with  paternalism  in  a  very  literal  sense.  Thus  a 
preacher  may  be  sent  to  a  certain  church  when  he 
is  not  qualified  to  fill  it,  because  he  has  a  large  family 
and  must  have  an  appointment  that  will  support  him. 
Peter  was  not  married.  I  was  the  only  family  he 


MY    SON  81 

had,  and  I  was  merely  the  relict  of  a  former  family, 
but  he  was  given  appointments  that  might  easily 
have  supported  a  preacher  with  a  wife  and  five  chil 
dren. 

The  bishop  of  a  Methodist  Conference  has  a  cabi 
net.  The  members  of  it  are  all  "secretaries  of  in 
terior,"  but  they  are  called  presiding  elders.  And 
like  Higher  Adams,  they  have  dominion  over  three 
or  four  hundred  preachers  in  this  Conference.  Some 
of  them  are  holy  men,  some  are  not  so  holy  but  have 
great  executive  ability.  Others,  with  no  particular 
renown  for  either  piety  or  ability,  have  that  queer 
thing  common  to  many  men  who  never  succeed  at 
anything  but  politics.  They  wear  velvet  gloves  on 
their  spiritual  fingers  and  have  astounding  influence 
in  managing  the  affairs  of  our  church.  But  nearly 
all  of  them  have  the  horse-trading  instinct.  The 
difference  is  that  they  trade  preachers  with  one  an 
other.  And  it  is  natural  for  a  presiding  elder  to 
strive  to  get  the  best  preachers  in  his  district.  I  do 
not  know  that  there  is  anything  wrong  in  the  prac 
tice,  but  it  is  sometimes  hard  on  an  old  itinerant  war- 
horse,  who  has  seen  his  best  day  and  has  grown  stiff 
in  his  legs  from  so  many  years  of  hard  service.  His 
presiding  elder  swaps  him  off  for  anything  he  can  get, 
maybe  a  youngster  just  entering  ministry — a  risk, 
but  a  better  one  than  an  old  man  who  had  failed  in 
everything  but  his  Psalms  and  prayers. 


82  MY   SON 

My  belief  is  that  Peter  owed  his  rapid  promotion 
to  his  reputation  in  the  bishop's  cabinet  for  building 
up  every  church  he  served.  His  reports  at  the  An 
nual  Conference  always  flattered  him.  He  was  like 
oil  on  troubled  waters  in  a  church  row.  He  even 
managed  to  get  his  board  of  stewards  to  live  in  love 
and  charity  with  him,  though  I  still  maintain  that  he 
could  not  have  done  it  two  years  in  succession  in  the 
same  church,  because  by  the  end  of  the  first  year  he 
had  invariablly  driven  them  so  hard  that  if  he  had 
been  returned  they  would  have  shown  him  their 
heels,  if  I  know  Methodist  stewards  as  well  as  I  think 
I  do.  Anyhow,  Peter  was  in  demand  with  the  pre 
siding  elders.  He  was  the  shooting  star  of  his  Con 
ference.  And  he  always  landed  with  his  light  shin 
ing  as  pastor  in  one  of  the  larger  churches.  This  was 
bad  for  him,  I  thought.  A  preacher  may  think  he  has 
surrendered  all  for  the  sake  of  his  Lord's  service,  but 
he  never  can  be  sure  until  he  gets  a  poor  little  runt 
of  a  circuit  somewhere  when  he  was  expecting  a  good 
appointment.  Then  if  he  can  keep  his  heart  from 
burning  about  the  juggling  and  swapping  among  the 
elders  that  resulted  in  his  getting  this  backset  in  the 
ministry,  and  if  he  "takes  this  work  as  from  the 
Lord,"  in  spite  of  what  he  knows  went  on  in  the 
cabinet,  he  is  really  qualified  in  grace  and  humility 
for  a  better  place  in  the  next  world  at  least. 

Peter  was  sent  to  big  country  towns  for  two  or 
three  years.  I  went  along,  with  William's  old  box 


MY    SON  83 

of  sermons  and  Kitto's  Commentaries,  you  may  say 
as  a  sort  of  maternal  epilogue  to  my  son.  I  did  not 
have  any  active  part  in  his  work.  I  was  merely 
present,  not  voting.  It  is  my  belief  that  I  knew  as 
much  about  the  future  as  Peter  and  his  dizzy  congre 
gations  did;  but  I  felt  like  an  old  gray-headed  "Nay, 
Nay"  whose  face  had  been  turned  forcibly  toward 
the  past  and  made  to  sit  that  way  while  my  son  led 
his  flocks  joyfully  through  the  pleasanter,  greener 
pastures  of  the  right-now  period. 

I  have  been  tempted  to  write  a  book  of  meditations 
for  elderly  people's  indignant  comfort  and  gratifica 
tion  about  the  way  we  are  removed  from  the  order  of 
things  just  when  we  know  more  than  anybody  else 
does  about  life,  and  have  developed  the  instinct  to 
teach  and  manage  the  world  according  to  experience, 
not  experiments. 

I  could  say  a  few  things  that  would  knock  the 
socks  off  of  pretentious  youth.  If  we  in  our  years 
made  the  mistakes,  did  the  foolhardy  things  and 
risked  without  testing  the  theories  they  try  out,  fre 
quently  at  the  whole  world's  expense,  the  last  one 
of  us  would  be  put  in  the  mad  house.  Very  few  of 
us  die  of  our  years.  We  are  dead  while  yet  we  live 
because  they  counsel  us  with  the  tenderest  kindness. 
Peter  had  that  way  with  me :  "You  are  growing  old, 
mother.  You  must  not  exert  yourself  too  much. 
Don't  worry.  Just  run  round  and  Visit  and  enjoy 
yourself.  You  have  had  a  hard  life.  Now  take 


84  MY    SON 

things  easy.  I  am  getting  on  with  my  work.  The 
people  like  my  preaching.  I  have  the  largest  con 
gregations  they  ever  had  in  this  church,  so  they  tell 
me." 

He  would  say  something  like  that. 

And  I  would  answer  something  like  this:  "But, 
Peter,  you  do  not  search  the  hearts  of  your  people. 
You  never  mention  their  sins.  Sin  is  a  word  you  do 
not  use.  You  do  not  exhort  them  to  repent  and  be 
lieve.  You  do  not  seem  to  realize,  my  son,  that  the 
world  has  lost  its  faith.  You  preach  salvation  by 
prosperity." 

Then  I  would  tell  him  the  things  his  prominent 
members  were  doing,  things  forbidden  in  the  Chris 
tian  life  as  well  as  in  the  discipline  of  our  church. 
And  he  would  retort  by  reminding  me  of  the  good 
they  were  also  accomplishing — so  much  for  charity, 
so  much  for  mission,  so  much  for  general  collections. 
He  was  an  optimist,  but  not  spiritual. 

Then  I'd  get  up  and  go  into  another  room,  sit 
down,  fold  my  hands  and  think  how  queer  it  was  to 
be  like  this.  I  recalled  so  many  years  when  I  was 
an  up-and-doing  woman  in  the  church  whose  opinion 
was  regarded.  I  remembered  how  I  used  to  tell  Peter 
to  go  and  say  his  prayers,  and  he  went  and  said  them. 
How  I  taught  him  what  was  right  and  what  was 
wrong,  and  he  believed  me.  Now  this  church  might 
as  well  be  some  kind  of  economic  institution  of  learn 
ing  in  which  I  felt  like  an  old  dunce.  And  now  I 


MY   SON  85 

had  lost  my  grip  on  Peter  as  if  he  were  a  wayward 
son. 

It  all  comes  to  this — you  must  be  meek  at  last. 
This  is  the  fate  of  every  man  and  of  every  woman 
when  the  years  stretch  farther  and  farther  behind 
you,  and  you  feel  the  cold  east  wind  of  another  coun 
try  blowing  in  your  face.  You  may  bluster  about 
it,  deny  your  age,  vow  that  you  feel  as  young  as 
you  ever  did,  keep  your  place  in  the  world  or  the 
church  and  even  in  the  conversation,  but  your  bones 
tell  no  lies.  They  ache  at  night  as  if  your  flesh  was 
a  frost  on  them.  And  sometimes  even  in  company 
you  must  reach  down  slyly  to  loosen  a  shoe  string 
because  your  feet  are  tired  and  swollen  from  the 
long,  long  journey  you  have  come,  though  you  do  not 
walk  much  now.  If  you  keep  your  place  in  the 
world  it  is  only  through  courtesy  or  through  the  pres 
tige  you  acquired  before  you  became  what  you  are 
now.  If  no  one  interrupts  you  when  you  monopolize 
the  conversation,  if  they  listen  respectfully  and  never 
contradict  you  nor  oppose  your  opinions,  that  is  a 
fatal  sign.  They  do  not  believe  a  single  thing  you 
say.  Your  wisdom  is  like  your  old  coat ;  it  does  not 
fit  the  arching  back  of  their  younger  views.  They 
are  merely  practicing  good  manners  to  the  aged. 
They  do  not  really  hear  what  you  are  saying.  They 
may  be  even  attending  your  funeral,  thinking  of  you 
in  the  terms  of  your  obituary.  What  a  fine  woman 
you  used  to  be  in  your  prime? 


86  MY    SON 

I  had  this  experience  sometimes  when  we  were 
asked  out  to  tea.  I  was  so  often  reminded  by  con 
trast  of  some  other  supper  William  and  I  had  in  a 
cabin  by  candlelight  long  ago  with  old  Brother 
Rhuebottom  and  his  wife.  Or  I  would  get  off  on  the 
experiences  we  had  during  one  of  his  best  revivals, 
where  sinners  were  converted  and  saints  shouted. 
Then  suddenly  I  would  realize  that  everybody  was 
being  politely  silent  but  not  really  listening.  And 
probably  my  hostess  would  be  regarding  me  with 
lifted  brows  and  a  small,  thin  smile,  and  I  under 
stood  by  the  enticing  way  she  said,  "Yes,"  and 
"Weren't  those  grand  old  days?" — as  if  these  days 
were  now  finely  polished  swords  hanging  on  the  wall 
for  keepsakes — that  she  was  sacrificing  herself  to 
my  garrulity  and  trying  to  make  herself  my  only 
victim  so  that  the  other  guests  might  go  on  talking 
about  what  they  had  been  talking  about  when  I 
started  off  on  this  tangent  that  led  backward  into 
the  past.  I  used  to  feel  a  little  hurt,  and  withdrew 
as  soon  as  possible  into  the  proper  silence  of  my 
years. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  be  dead  to  the  world,  but  it 
is  a  queer  and  depressing  sensation  to  discover  that 
the  world  is  dead  to  you.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  take 
a  back  seat  in  your  old  age  when  in  your  prime  you 
were  a  prominent  person,  even  if  you  were  only  dis 
tinguished  for  your  meekness  and  long-suffering. 
And  there  are  moments  to  the  last  when  you  must 


MY   SON  87 

spring  to  your  feet  from  force  of  habit,  wave  your 
hand  and  say:  "My  dear  brethren,  I  rise  to  a  point 
of  personal  privilege.  Everybody  here  is  wrong  but 


me!' 


You  may  as  well  sit  down  and  let  the  wrong  go  on. 
The  brethren  will  not  recognize  you.  You  are  out 
of  order. 

I  have  seen  this  trembling-kneed  tragedy  too  many 
times  not  to  recognize  the  symptoms  of  it  in  my  own 
case.  So  I  tried  to  be  patient  and  wait  for  what 
would  happen.  I  wanted  to  be  somewhere  round 
when  the  mountains  fell  on  Peter.  I  have  never 
claimed  to  be  a  very  good  woman;  but  I  have 
noticed  this,  that  there  are  two  things  that  cannot 
be  changed — the  weather  and  the  word.  We  have 
changed  everything  else.  We  have  made  the  earth 
over  many  times  on  top.  We  have  built  cities  where 
rivers  ran.  WTe  sail  a  thousand  ships  where  once 
was  dry  land.  We  have  cut  out  the  whole  geography 
of  the  world  half  a  dozen  times.  We  have  moved 
races  as  if  they  were  baggage.  We  have  produced 
new  nations  and  new  civilizations.  Sometimes  I 
have  thought  in  a  horrified  moment  that  if  God  had 
not  made  this  earth  some  man  would  have  made  it. 
Give  him  an  anvil  and  an  atom  and  he  can  do  nearly 
anything  that  is  a  thing.  But  who  by  taking  thought 
can  change  the  wind  from  the  east  to  the  west,  or 
cause  one  drop  of  rain  to  fall,  or  make  a  season  fair 
when  clouds  steam  up  ?  That  breath  which  the  Lord 


88  MY    SON 

breathed  upon  this  earth  when  he  said,  "Let  there  be 
light,"  so  that  he  could  set  up  a  firmament  to  divide 
the  waters  from  the  waters  and  establish  the  dry 
land,  and  started  the  grass  to  growing  with  the  dew 
on  it,  is  the  same  wind  that  blew  up  the  first  cloud 
from  which  the  rain  fell,  and  it  is  still  blowing 
where  it  listeth  according  to  his  mind  and  his  sea 
sons.  And  we  cannot  do  a  thing  about  it  except 
put  on  more  clothes  and  build  a  fire;  or  take  off  some 
clothes  and  not  build  a  fire. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  word.  We  cannot  change 
it.  It  is  the  weather  of  immortality.  It  is  the  very 
breath  of  God  to  the  soul  of  man.  Nothing  we  do 
or  think  can  take  its  place.  The  fact  remains  that 
the  pure  in  heart  do  see  God,  and  they  do  it  by 
faith.  They  are  good  by  faith,  they  love  and  hope 
by  faith,  and  they  are  the  only  peace  makers  in  this 
world  who  do  make  and  keep  the  peace.  They  are 
the  safe  people.  The  word  is  their  law  and  their 
life.  They  are  still  the  leaven  that  leaveneth  what 
we  call  Christian  civilization.  They  are  yet  the  most 
powerful  and  most  influential  people  among  us  with 
out  making  a  fuss  about  it.  They  hold  things  to 
gether  in  spite  of  wars  and  politics  and  the  masses 
and  classes  who  work  and  work  in  idleness  and  bitter 
ness  to  achieve  their  greeds  and  purposes. 

What  does  it  matter  that  the  mere  form  of  the 
Scriptures  is  blown  down  the  windy  ages  to  us  out 
of  songs  and  myths,  as  the  mere  body  of  a  man  comes 


MY    SON  89 

up  from  the  familiar  dust?  The  truth  is  in  them,  as 
the  spirit  of  Something  not  dust  is  in  man.  This 
truth  cannot  be  changed  without  destroying  man  by 
the  very  perversity  of  man.  Look  at  the  witnesses 
against  him.  Every  other  living  leopard  thing,  every 
flying,  crawling,  creeping,  walking  thing  is  instinct 
ively  afraid  of  him.  They  know  that  he  is  different, 
something  more  or  worse  than  a  mere  animal. 

I  never  had  much  learning,  but  I  have  accumu 
lated  considerable  wisdom  of  the  kind  a  wayfaring 
man,  even  if  he  is  not  very  bright,  gets,  simply  by 
doing  the  way  he  ought  to  do.  And  I  have  observed 
that  it  does  something  to  a  man  who  substitutes  his 
reason  and  his  convenience  for  faith  in  God.  Reason 
belongs  to  j.ust  our  dust,  and  that  part  of  us  only 
belongs  to  th^  time  of  day  in  which  we  live.  And  if 
we  do  not  believe  beyond  this  dust  that  merely 
clothes  us  and  this  short  day  which  is  only  a  little 
spoolful  of  time,  wound  out  of  eternity  and  cannot 
be  broken  but  takes  us  again  into  it — well,  you  can 
look  round  and  see  what  it  does  to  people.  A  lot 
of  them  are  snarled  up  in  just  this  world's  time  of 
day.  They  are  the  halt,  lame  and  blind  among  us, 
trying  to  prepare  a  revolution  that  will  enable  them 
to  take  what  they  will  not  earn,  trying  to  destroy  the 
word  which  is  the  only  law  that  cannot  be  repealed, 
amended  or  changed. 

It  will  not  happen.  That  revolution  will  not  come 
off.  It  will  not,  even  if  it  comes,  because  a  revolu- 


90  MY   SON 

tion  is  by  nature  a  mere  blast  of  temper.  It  cannot 
go  on.  And  when  the  dust  of  it  clears  and  the  dead 
of  it  are  buried,  nothing  of  any  real  importance  will 
be  changed.  Everything  will  be  ready,  as  it  was  in 
the  beginning — the  same  weather,  the  same  inviolate 
word  for  those  who  shall  have  learned  that  the  "per 
fect  law  of  liberty"  is  work  and  obedience. 

During  these  earlier  years  of  Peter's  ministry  I 
was  at  a  loss  to  discover  the  name  of  the  thing  he 
had  so  innocently  and  honestly  substituted  for  the 
religion  of  his  fathers.  Finally  I  discovered  that 
it  was  not  God  at  all,  merely  the  science  of  human 
duty.  Every  preacher  has  his  favorite  bywords  of  the 
gospel.  William's  were :  "Ye  must  be  born  again," 
"Believe  in  me  and  ye  shall  have  eternal  life,"  "Keep 
the  faith,"  and  a  hundred  similar  phrases.  But  Peter 
was  always  quoting  from  some  Ph.D.  So-and-So,  who 
was  a  scholar  but  not  an  apostle. 

One  must  not  object  to  these  books  as  literature, 
and  no  doubt  they  are  useful  to  people  who  desire  to 
cultivate  a  sober  dullness  of  mind  and  character.  But 
for  the  priests  of  God  there  are  the  teachings  of 
Jesus,  the  first  and  second  Epistles  of  the  Apostles, 
the  Acts  to  guide  him  in  practical  service.  And  if 
he  ought  to  touch  up  his  congregation  with  a  little 
harshness,  he  can  always  find  it  in  the  Old  Testa 
ment.  I  never  thought  much  of  Solomon  as  a  Chris 
tian  man,  but  he  had  a  dolorous  wisdom  of  life  that 
suits  the  taste  of  the  bitterer  saints.  And  if  there 


MY   SON  91 

is  some  transgressor  in  his  congregation  who  he  knows 
ought  to  be  searched  out  and  attended  to,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  call  him  by  name  and  hurt  his  feelings. 
The  preacher  has  only  to  take  his  text  from  the  right 
Psalm,  because  David  has  prepared  all  the  rituals  of 
penitence  any  kind  of  sinner  needs.  If  he  wants  elo 
quence  to  inspire  him  there  is  Isaiah,  the  most  nobly 
eloquent  man,  living  or  dead,  without  one  strain  of 
Promethean  impotence  in  the  torrential  splendors  of 
his  great  spirit. 

One  Sunday  Peter  read  the  Ten  Commandments, 
and  then  preached,  you  may  say,  at  random  on  the 
moral  law.  He  did  not  take  these  commandments 
one  by  one  and  test  his  people  with  them.  He  did 
not  quote  from  Moses  or  any  other  Scripture.  But 
he  said  a  good  deal  in  this  sermon,  which  I  believe 
was  quoted,  more  than  you  could  prove,  because  you 
could  not  tell  exactly  when  he  passed  fr.jni  Hegel  to 
Hobbes,  except  that  now  and  then  he  seemed  to  strike 
a  sort  of  intellectual  air  pocket  when  he  dropped  in 
plain  view  of  the  humbler  intelligences  in  his  con 
gregation.  I  watched  him,  and  I  was  bound  to  con 
clude  that  these  descents  were  the  only  parts  of 
that  discourse  which  he  had  got  from  his  own 
thinking,  and  all  of  it  was  seventh  cousin  removed 
from  the  Scriptures^  which  are  always  addressed 
personally  to  "you"  and  may  always  be  recognized 
by  that. 


92  MY   SON 

Finally  he  passed  entirely  out  of  sight  in  a  sort 
of  passive  verb  obscurity  though  he  was  mounted  on 
what  he  called  Kant's  "categorical  imperative." 

I  remember  an  old  man  named  Glass  who  lived 
years  ago  in  one  of  our  college  towns.  He  was  dis 
tinguished  for  his  simplicity  and  for  the  fact  that  he 
was  almost  stone  deaf.  He  had  not  attended  re 
ligious  services  for  thirty  years  on  this  account.  But 
having  learned  that  a  celebrated  doctor  of  divinity 
would  preach  on  the  psychology  of  Saint  Paul  he 
dusted  his  coat,  combed  his  long  white  beard  and 
went  to  church  that  day.  He  sat  on  the  front  bench, 
leaning  far  forward,  his  doddering  old  head  cocked 
to  one  side,  his  hand  cupped  back  of  his  best  ear, 
and  his  eyes  fixed  in  a  sort  of  rheumy  astonishment 
on  the  great  man,  who  read  what  he  had  to  say  about 
the  vertebra  of  Saint  Paul's  spiritual  nature  in  a 
moderate  speaking  voice,  no  animation,  no  gestures 
to  nearten  a^  this  wasteful  use  of  good  English,  dully 
assembled. 

Peter's  congregation  regarded  him  much  in  the 
same  manner  on  this  occasion.  They  were  plain  peo 
ple  out  of  an  enterprising  country  town,  well  dressed, 
comfortable,  but  not  furbished  up  mentally,  accus 
tomed  all  their  church  lives  to  doctrines  and  amens 
and  evangelistic  preaching.  They  backslid  right 
there.  I  saw  them  do  it.  They  listened  with  a  con 
centrated  attention  which  they  would  never  have 
given  to  a  plain  gospel  sermon.  Peter  had  them  on 


MY    SON  93 

their  mettle.  They  were  determined  to  understand 
him  if  it  were  humanly  possible.  This  was  the  height 
of  their  ambition,  to  skin  the  cat  intellectually  when 
ever  he  did. 

The  modern  preachers  seem  to  me  to  be  divided 
into  at  least  two  classes — those  who  really  do  preach 
the  gospel,  but  without  any  vital  faith  in  its  power 
to  move  the  people,  and  those  who  preach  just  ethics, 
which  is  not  preaching  at  all.  It  is  offering  a  set  of 
fashionable  people  or  unfashionable  people  who  have 
not  been  regenerated  his  own  favorite  butternut  pat 
tern  of  morals.  Maybe  he  tells  them  from  which 
firm  of  writers  he  gets  it,  maybe  he  does  not.  It 
comes  to  the  same  thing.  What  he  says  does  not 
carry  with  it  the  power  of  conviction. 

You  cannot  go  on  being  meek  all  the  time,  not 
even  if  you  are  old  and  everybody  has  passed  you  in 
the  dust  of  the  road.  There  comes  a  day  when  you  get 
a  vision  through  a  rift  in  this  dust,  you  see  the  moun 
tains  shaking.  You  know  something  is  going  to  hap 
pen,  and  you  get  up  for  one  brief  moment  to  bar  the 
way  and  stop  this  foolishness.  You  do  not  succeed. 
Nobody  sees  you,  but  you  have  the  indignant  con 
solation  of  having  had  your  say. 

I  waited  that  day  until  Peter  had  taken  his  Sab 
bath-afternoon  rest,  but  when  he  came  out  in  the 
cool  of  the  evening  to  sit  behind  the  vines  on  the 
porch  I  was  there. 

He  made  some  remark  about  what  a  pleasant  day 


94  MY   SON 

this  had  been,  and  seeing  that  he  did  not  refer  en 
tirely  to  the  admirable  autumn  weather,  but  to  some 
feeling  of  personal  satisfaction  he  had  in  it,  I  replied 
briefly  in  the  affirmative  just  wide  enough  to  cover 
the  day.  He  asked  me  if  I  noticed  what  a  large  con 
gregation  he  had  at  the  morning  service.  I  admitted 
that  a  great  many  people  were  there. 

"I  never  preached  to  a  more  attentive  audience !" 
he  exclaimed. 

"Yes,  they  listened  as  if  they  were  deaf,"  I  an 
swered. 

He  glanced  at  me  inquiringly. 

"What  was  that  you  quoted,  toward  the  last  of 
your  sermon'?"  I  asked. 

He  was  pleased.  When  you  are  young  and  do 
not  know  how  simple  real  wisdom  is,  and  have  just 
preached  a  learned  discourse,  you  do  crave  the, 
humbler  admiration  of  your  fellow  men,  even  if  it 
is  only  your  old  gray-haired  mother. 

"Oh,  yes,"  Jie  answered;  "I  hope  they  all  got  that. 
It  sums  up  the  whole  business  of  living:  'Act  only 
onithe  maxim  which  thou  canst  at  the  same  time  will 
to  become  the  universal  law,'  "  he  repeated  sonor 
ously. 

"Why  didn't  you  quote  Matthew,  seventh  chapter 
and  twelfth  verse,  then,  without  calling  it  some 
body's  categorical  imperative4?"  I  demanded. 

He  flirted  his  head  round  and  caught  the  look  I 
was  giving  him  over  the  top  of  my  glasses. 


MY   SON  95 

It  was  a  plagiarism  of  the  Golden  Rule,  but  I 
doubt  if  your  congregation  recognized  it,  fussed  up 
in  that  egotistical  thunder  of  words,"  I  said. 

Peter  was  regarding  me  as  you  do  a  member  of 
your  family  who  shows  the  impudence  of  invincible 
ignorance. 

"Mother!"  he  exclaimed.  "You  are  referring  to 
one  of  the  greatest  thinkers  of  the  age." 

"And  I  am  reminding  you  of  the  greatest  Teacher 
of  all  ages,  who  said  the  same  thing  so  simply  that  a 
wayfaring  man  could  understand  it  and  do  it  with 
out  puffing  himself  up  by  willing  it  on  the  rest  of  us 
as  universal  law.  That  man  didn't  think  it,  Peter; 
he  learned  it,  and  then  hid  it  in  philosophical  terms, 
as  doctors  and  lawyers  conceal  the  plain  meaning  of 
medicines  and  laws  in  Latin  words  and  big  phrases," 
I  told  him. 

He  was  silent,  not  from  regret  but  from  filial  re 
pression.  I  took  the  advantage  of  him  that  Nature 
gave  me  and  went  on  speaking. 

"You  are  whitewashing  your  people,  Peter.  You 
are  not  teaching  them  to  live  by  faith  and  to  do  the 
will  of  God.  You  are  teaching  them  how  to  choose 
a  convenient  pattern  of  morals  for  this  present  world. 
You  read  the  Ten  Commandments  this  morning; 
then  you  quoted,  but  you  scarcely  mentioned  Moses, 
who  led  an  undisciplined  people  through  lands  and 
wildernesses  for  forty  years,  not  because  he  taught 
them  that  these  were  the  principles  of  moral  law 


96  MY   SON 

but  because  he  taught  them  to  believe  that  they 
were  literally  from  the  Lord  Almighty.  Could  a 
single  man  you  quoted  this  morning  lead  a  people  by 
reading  them  his~own  essays  on  morals?  They  could 
not.  They  lack  that  authority  of  true  prophets — ' 
"Thus  saith  the  Lord !" 

I  got  up  heavily  out  of  my  chair,  feeling  very 
much  moved  because  I  had  not  moved  Peter.  I  was 
about  to  pass  into  the  house  through  the  door  be 
hind  him  when  I  had  another  thought.  Sometimes 
I  fear  that  this  will  happen  to  me  after  my  last 
breath  is  gone,  that  I  may  have  a  thought  without 
being  able  to  speak  it,  and  that  I  shall  lie  uneasily 
in  my  very  grave  with  it  sticking  up  out  of  the  dust 
of  my  mortal  mind  like  a  flame. 

"My  objection  to  just  ethics,  Peter,"  I  said,  ad 
dressing  the  back  of  his  head,  "is  that  they  have  too 
many  parents,  both  heathen  and  pagan,  and  that 
these  parents  borrow  from  each  other  and  taint  their 
systems  with  this  commerce  of  ideas,  and  that  they 
are  coldly  impersonal,  and  that  you  cannot  tell  by 
the  noble  language  they  use  whether  they  are  Chris 
tians  or  atheists.  Right  now  there  are  agitators  in 
this  country  quoting  the  same  men  you  quoted  this 
morning,  and  they  are  working  at  the  very  founda 
tions  of  our  peace  and  order." 

Then  I  went  in,  wiped  my  eyes  and  said  tearfully, 
"Oh,  William,  William!"  and  "Lord  be  merciful 
to  Peter,  a  fool,  but  my  son,  and  an  honest  man!" 


MY   SON  97 

Then  I  prepared  our  evening  meal,  which  is  a  light 
one  on  Sunday,  and  told  Peter  I  was  not  very  well, 
and  would  not  go  to  church  that  night,  because  I 
was  fearful  of  what  I  had  done  to  him,  and  that 
I  might  quench  whatever  spirit  he  had  to  preach  with. 

In  1917  Peter  had  his  first  city  church,  at  Drum 
head,  which  is  a  fashionable  suburb  of  the  capital 
of  this  state.  It  was  separated  from  the  city  by  the 
country  club  and  golf  links.  It  was  a  small  buf 
very  handsome  church.  The  membership  was  also 
small  but  composed  entirely  of  rich  and  fashionable 
people.  There  were  no  publicans  and  sinners  in 
this  church,  and  no  poor  people  in  Drumhead.  Ii 
you  wanted  to  do  something  charitable  you  must  get 
into  your  limousine  and  be  driven  five  miles  in  the 
opposite  direction  to  find  the  perpetually  poor.  A 
good  deal  of  this  went  on  in  Drumhead. 

I  have  noticed  that  rich  people  like  to  have  their 
good  deeds  and  pay  high  for  them,  as  they  like  to 
have  fine  rugs  on  their  floors  and  do  not  mind  the 
price.  I  doubt  if  they  enjoy  any  luxury  their  wealth 
affords  more  than  they  do  this  elegant  Samaritanism. 
But  sometimes  when  I  saw  Mrs.  Buckhart  go  by  in 
her  big  car  on  her  way  to  do  her  alms  in  the  city  I 
used  to  think  of  Sister  Sally  Tears,  an  old  "widow 
indeed"  that  William  and  I  knew  years  ago.  She 
lived  in  a  little  house  that  looked  like  a  gray  eyebrow 
on  the  side  of  the  mountain.  She  was  herself  an 
object  of  charity.  The  county  contributed  something 


98  MY    SON 

to  her  support,  and  the  church  did  the  rest.  When 
ever  the  collection  for  the  poor  was  taken  we  always 
knew  we  were  wasting  our  nickels  and  dimes  on 
Sister  Sally  Tears,  because  she  was  disgracefully 
extravagant  with  her  charities.  She  was  always 
dividing  her  measure  of  meal  with  somebody,  or  get 
ting  her  feet  wet  and  being  laid  up  with  rheumatism 
for  us  to  nurse  her,  because  she  had  gone  off  in  bad 
weather  to  nurse  somebody  else.  Finally  she  capped 
the  climax  by  adopting  an  orphan,  and  not  a  service 
able  orphan  at  that,  but  a  crippled  boy  who  was 
about  to  be  sent  to  the  poorhouse.  The  only  ex 
planation  she  ever  gave  was  that  she  was  "tired  of 
being  a  childless  widow." 

I  used  to  feel  sorry  for  Mrs.  Buckhart  sometimes. 
She  was  very  rich,  and  she  was  charitable,  but  she 
did  not  know  how  to  administer  her  funds.  She  was 
autocratic.  She  snatched  the  poor  whom  she  adopted" 
bodily  out  of  the  ways  that  fitted  their  minds  and 
spirits.  She  rebuked  them.  She  wanted  to  scrub 
them  and  make  them  over  in  her  own  image.  She 
would  tell  them  what  she  thought  of  them,  which 
was  nothing  good,  then  she  would  come  back  and  tell 
us  what  she  told  them  and  what  she  did  to  them. 
They  took  her  money,  but  the  poor  things  did  not 
love  her.  She  was  a  damnable  providence  who  fed 
them  and  reigned  over  them  with  a  trained  nurse  and 
a  manual  on  sanitation. 

It  is  easier  to  give  all  your  goods  to  feed  the  poor, 


MY    SON  99 

or  not  to  have  any  goods — only  your  virtues,  to  boast 
of — than  it  is  to  judge  the  rich  with  charity.  I  was 
probably  unjust  to  Mrs.  Buckhart,  who  could  not 
help  being  imperative  about  her  good  deeds,  when 
I  compared  her  with  Sally  Tears,  who  was  a  per: 
verse  old  woman  never  conscious  for  one  moment  of 
her  charities.  But  I  thought  of  her,  because  she  also 
was  an  autocrat,  like  this  rich  woman.  When  she 
took  on  that  orphan  she  made  us  support  him.  She 
did  not  beg,  she  went  out  and  took  up  a  collection  of 
what  she  needed  and  would  have  for  that  child.  She 
would  not  keep  him  clean,  but  she  made  the  good 
and  bad  people  of  that  community  contribute  funds 
to  get  him  through  school,  and  the  last  I  heard  of 
htm  he  was  a  telegraph  operator  anxious  to  remove 
Sally  Tears,  then  a  very  old  woman,  from  being  a 
charge  on  the  community.  He  could  not  do  it.  She 
went  on  mulcting  the  church  and  the  sinners  for 
funds  which  she  applied  according  to  her  notions  for 
the  relief  of  other  people.  She  was  the  most  auto- 
cratic  philanthropist  I  ever  saw  except  Mrs.  Buck- 
hart.  But  I  always  thought  she  had  more  genius  for 
this  business,  because  she  used  the  community  as  her 
treasury,  and  Mrs.  Buckhart  depended  upon  her  own 
pocket.  I  do  not  know  how  charitable  she  would 
have  been  if  she  had  had  no  pocket. 

There  was  no  amen  corner  in  this  church  at  Drum 
head,  and  this  was  hard  on  me,  being  obliged  to  sit 
with  my  whole  back  to  the  congregation,  with  no 


100  MY   SON 

polite  way  of  seeing  what  was  going  on  behind  me. 
But  nothing  went  on.  These  people  had  their  pews. 
They  rustled  in  softly  and  sat  there  for  an  hour  on 
Sunday  mornings.  It  was  a  sort  of  elegant  acknowl 
edgment  of  the  Lord  they  made  in  his  absence.  The 
immortal  soul  was  the  skeleton  in  the  closet  among 
them.  I  had  not  been  there  a  week  before  I  dis 
covered  that  it  was  indelicate  to  mention  even  my 
own  soul,  or  to  say  anything  about  temptation  or 
holiness.  I  had  to  learn  not  to  mention  the  Lord  at 
tea  parties.  I  reckon  there  was  an  element  of  de 
cency  and  reverence  in  this  spiritual  reserve — if  only 
I  could  have  believed  it  was  spiritual.  Maybe  it  is 
all  in  the  way  you  are  raised.  Now  I  was  never  em 
barrassed  by  a  reference  to  the  will  of  God  anywhere, 
but  never  in  my  life  have  I  mentioned  my  own  legs 
to  a  human  being.  If  I  had  rheumatism  and  was 
obliged  to  tell  the  doctor  where,  I  mentioned  my 
right  limb,  which  had  been  long  afflicted  this  way, 
but  even  the  young  girls  in  this  church  at  Drum 
head  talked  as  freely  of  their  legs,  and  showed  them 
in  a  way  that  made  me  ashamed  to  go  out  on  the 
street  with  Peter.  Maybe  it  is  really  more  modest  to 
be  entirely  unconscious  of  your  limbs,  even  if  they 
attract  much  public  attention,  and  at  the  same  time 
to 'be  so  conscious  of  the  sacredness  of  your  im 
mortal  soul  that  you  shrink  from  any  social  refer 
ence  to  it.  I  am  saying  that  it  felt  queer  to  me,  not 
judging  them  at  all. 


MY   SON  101 

Peter  was  punctilious  about  his  ritual  and  the 
forms  of  his  service.  This  is  gratifying  to  fashion 
able  people.  They  are  disposed  to  reduce  everything 
to  a  mode,  and  their  sensibilities  are  very  delicate. 
I  knew  a  good  preacher  once  who  was  not  acceptable 
to  a  city  congregation  because  he  used  agricultural 
illustrations  in  his  sermons,  even  going  so  far  as  to 
mention  by  its  given  name  that  barnyard  product 
with  which  land  is  fertilized.  The  poor  man  had 
preached  for  twenty  years  on  the  country  circuits, 
where  the  odor  of  fertilizers  pervaded  the  church 
itself  when  farmers  came  in  hurriedly  from  the  fields 
to  attend  a  quarterly  meeting  on  Saturday.  Peter 
made  no  such  mistake.  He  was  not  given  to  ges 
tures,  as  you  do  not  cross  your  legs  in  company  or 
show  much  animation  if  you  are  extremely  well  bred. 
And  if  he  used  an  illustration  he  took  it  from  astrono 
my  or  the  poets  or  some  source  implying  his  recog 
nition  of  the  culture  which  this  congregation  exhaled. 

I  used  to  sit  in  this  church  at  Drumhead  on  Sun 
day  morning  and  think  about  those  first  churches, 
at  Antioch,  and  Ephesus,  and  Corinth,  and  of 
Timothy,  the  young  pastor  whom  Paul  left  in 
charge.  I  doubt  if  they  had  churches  at  all.  Maybe 
at  first  they  held  services  in  a  back  room  somewhere 
or  in  the  home  of  one  of  the  dutiful  widows.  They 
must  have  had  a  very  real  sort  of  worship.  No  ritual, 
no  hymns.  Maybe  they  hummed  a  Psalm  or  two, 
and  prayed,  gathered  close  together  as  sheep  do  in 


102  MY   SON 

very  bad  weather.  I  could  see  Timothy,  pale  and 
worn  with  anxiety  for  their  safety  and  the  burden  of 
these  souls  committed  to  his  care.  I  reckon  it  was 
a  great  occasion  when  he  had  a  letter  from  Paul,  a 
prisoner  in  Rome.  When  he  drew  it  forth  and 
showed  it  to  them  maybe  they  clapped  their  hands 
for  joy  to  know  that  Paul  was  still  living  and  remem 
bering  them;  and  nobody  called  it  "shouting." 
Shouting  in  my  opinion  is  a  very  gross  word  in  this 
connection,  probably  used  by  some  person  on  the 
back  bench  who  knew  nothing  of  the  experience  he 
made  it  cover.  Then  I  could  see  the  stir  among  the 
little  company.  The  "widows  indeed"  keep  their 
seats  a  little  back  in  the  shadows  with  their 
heads  properly  covered,  but  the  others  crowd  round 
Timothy,  who  is  about  to  read  what  Paul  says ;  not 
all  of  the  letter,  but  extracts  from  it.  They  crane 
their  necks  and  look  over  one  another's  shoulders  and 
listen.  And  the  widows  begin  to  weep  softly,  even 
if  the  instructions  Timothy  got  concerning  them  were 
a  bit  harsh.  For  some  reason  or  another  widows  were 
partial  to  Paul,  maybe  because  he  kept  them  safe 
and  humble  before  the  Lord.  And  maybe  those  closer 
about  Timothy  had  tears  in  their  eyes  as  he  read  what 
Paul  said  about  enduring  all  things  and  if  we  suffer, 
we  shall  also  reign  with  him.  And  how  God  had 
not  given  us  the  spirit  of  fear,  but  of  power,  and  of 
love,  and  of  a  sound  mind.  Then  would  follow  mes 
sages  to  this  one  and  that  one  who  "oft  refreshed 


MY    SON  103 

me,  and  was  not  ashamed  of  my  chain."  Also  warn 
ings  against  this  man  or  that  one  who  had  not  been 
true  to  the  faith. 

I  do  not  question  Paul's  divine  inspiration,  but 
there  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  he  had  the  over 
bearing  nature  and  the  irascible  temper  of  a  great 
man.  But  that  which  has  always  touched  me  most 
was  his  concern  for  the  people  in  these  little  churches. 
The  anguished  sweetness  of  his  love  for  them,  his 
fatherly  concern  for  Timothy,  even  telling  him  what 
to  do  for  his  indigestion,  and  no  fear  for  himself 
about  to  be  slain.  Twelve  preachers  like  this  one, 
my  masters,  set  the  world  on  fire  with  a  new  faith. 
Now  half  a  million  of  them  cannot  move  this  same 
world  trained  in  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  re 
ligion.  There  is  just  one  reason — they  do  not  be 
lieve  in  the  gospel  they  preach.  They  are  beginning 
to  "divide  the  word  of  truth."  There  is  only  one 
way  to  test  the  Scriptures.  That  is  to  believe  them. 

I  used  to  sit  and  listen  to  Peter's  sermons  and 
think  on  the  side  about  these  things  which  were  not 
in  his  sermons.  He  was  a  good  preacher  in  a  way. 
I  doubt  if  the  average  person  in  this  congregation 
missed  the  thing  that  was  lacking  in  his  ministry.  As 
a  pastor  he  ardently  believed  in  his  fellow  man.  This 
was  one  of  his  limitations.  It  is  written  in  the  Scrip 
tures  that  you  shall  love  your  fellow  man  with  all 
charity  and  sacrifices,  but  watch  him,  keep  your  eye 
on  him,  warn  him,  rebuke  him,  be  his  keeper  and  his 


104  MY   SON 

brother;  but  it  does  not  say  anywhere  that  you  shall 
be  such  a  fool  as  to  believe  in  him.  It  says  believe 
in  God  and  put  your  whole  trust  in  him  and  his  word 
if  you  hope  to  be  justified. 

Peter  was  so  popular  with  the  women  in  this 
church  that  they  invited  him  to  deliver  some  lectures 
before  the  women's  clubs.  Now  modern  women  must 
have  lectures,  of  course,  because  they  must  obey 
somebody,  and  they  no  longer  keep  the  domestic  laws 
of  obedience  and  service.  I  do  not  reproach  them 
for  that,  though  I  have  never  known  one  who  could 
justify  her  escape  from  these  bonds.  But  it  made  me 
nervous  when  these  clubwomen  spotted  Peter  as  be 
ing  easy  enough  or  vague  enough  to  satisfy  their  cul 
tural  cravings.  I  have  never  heard  of  a  woman's 
club  inviting  a  plain  old-fashioned  circuit  rider  to 
address  them.  They  want  novelists,  dramatists,  poets 
and  psychics  to  teach  them.  They  hate  the  naked, 
unvarnished  truth  as  if  it  were  an  indecency.  They 
live  in  their  imaginations.  You  cannot  tell  now 
from  looking  at  a  woman  even  in  church  if  she  is 
an  honest  Christian.  She  may  have  taken  to  just  her 
aura  or  to  free  thought.  She  may  be  bedridden  on 
a  theory  of  mysticism;  or  a  spiritist  holding  com 
munications  with  the  dead  over  an  ouija  board.  Give 
me  a  picketing  suffragist  every  time ;  not  that  I  could 
bear  one,  but  she  may  be  arrested  and  removed,  but 
there  is  no  law  for  disciplining  the  innocuously 
cultured  woman.  Even  if  she  is  not  a  spiritist 


MY    SON  105 

she  is  the  medium  through  which  sickly  stuff  is 
spread. 

By  this  time  Peter's  hair  was  a  trifle  thin  in  front. 
He  had  a  gray  lock  on  each  temple,  as  if  the  gravity 
of  a  thought  had  touched  his  youth  there.  He  was 
a  very  handsome  man.  He  had  escaped  the  pallor 
of  the  ministry,  retaining  his  rich  coloring.  And  he 
was  still  unmarried.  So  far  he  had  escaped  romantic 
complications,  either  from  celibate  reserve  or  shrewd 
ness.  I  could  never  be  sure.  He  had  no  spiritual 
blind  side  from  which  some  preachers  suffer  in  their 
relations  to  women.  It  was  impossible  to  slip  up  on 
him  through  the  Scriptures.  Women  were  shy  of 
confessing  their  sins  to  him,  I  suppose  because  he  so 
rarely  stirred  up  the  seat  of  sin  in  his  preaching.  My 
belief  is  that  they  all  felt  the  merciless  sanity  of  his 
relations  to  them  as  a  pastor,  and  they  fought  shy 
of  him.  But  I  could  not  tell  what  would  happen 
to  Peter  now  in  this  houri  atmosphere  of  veiled  mys 
ticism  which  pervaded  the  Drumhead  Women's  Club, 
and  I  was  very  uneasy  about  him.  It  is  bad  enough 
when  some  prayer-meeting  lady  saint  wants  to  read 
Second  Samuel  with  your  husband  if  he  is  her  pastor; 
but  you  know  what  to  do  with  her.  It  is  much  worse 
when  a  beautiful  young  woman  wishes  to  consult 
your  son,  who  is  her  pastor,  on  the  monism  of  Par- 
menides,  because  if  you  are  a  Christian  woman  you 
do  not  know  who  this  Parmenides  is,  and  you  do  not 
know  what  to  say  to  her. 


106  MY    SON 

Isobel  Sangster  was  a  member  of  Peter's  congre 
gation,  though  it  turned  out  that  she  was  not  a  mem 
ber  of  any  church.  She  attended  services  regularly 
and  sat  always  in  the  same  place,  against  the  wall 
between  the  two  windows  on  the  right-hand  side. 
She  dressed  with  elegant  simplicity,  no  ornaments 
of  any  kind  except  her  brilliant  red  hair,  her  brown 
eyes  and  her  exquisite  skin.  She  always  wore  the 
same  colors,  pale  green  with  the  frost  of  whiteness 
on  it  like  sage  leaves.  It  was  as  if  she  had  had  a 
portrait  painted  of  herself  and  stuck  to  it.  I  remem 
ber  thinking  the  first  time  I  saw  her  what  a  beautiful 
corpse  she  would  make,  she  was  that  pale  and  still, 
you  understand. 

Then  I  began  to  notice  her  a  good  deal  because 
her  eyes  clung  to  Peter  when  he  would  be  preaching 
with  a  sort  of  hypnotic  intensity.  I  saw  that  she  was 
not  well  in  her  mind.  And  I  did  not  think  she  was 
under  conviction  for  sin,  because  Peter  did  not  say 
anything  to  convict  people  of  their  sins.  The  next 
thing  I  observed  was  that  Peter  faced  oftener  toward 
the  right  in  the  pulpit,  and  devoted  most  of  his  min 
istry  to  that  side  of  the  house.  But  that  girl  would 
get  up  every  time  and  leave  the  church  without 
speaking  to  him  and  telling  him  how  much  she  en 
joyed  the  sermon.  It  is  a  mystery  to  me  yet  how  she 
met  him  and  where,  but  she  did.  She  was  only  a 
stranger  in  church  on  Sunday  morning.  She  used  to 
pass  the  parsonage  in  her  electric  and  bow  to  Peter 


MY    SON  107 

on  the  porch.  Then  she  stopped  one  day  and  had  a 
long  talk  with  him  about  this  Parmenides. 

There  was  no  place  for  me  in  this  conversation,  but 
I  remained  present.  She  gracefully  relaxed  and 
talked  like  a  dream.  Peter  conducted  himself  like 
a  normal  m?.n  with  a  beam  in  his  eye.  Apparently 
nothing  she  said  could  convince  him  that  she  was  not 
a  beautiful  woman  with  brown  eyes  and  red  hair. 
His  manner  meant  that.  Otherwise  he  disregarded 
her,  the  point  of  view  she  held,  as  if  this  was  too 
absurd  to  consider,  and  as  if  her  complexion  was 
the  main  thing  that  interested  him.  She  could  not 
fail  to  feel  this,  but  she  held  her  note  languidly,  like 
a  sad  squeak  in  the  dark.  I  heard  her  tell  Peter  as 
she  was  leaving  that  the  mystical  spirit  would  never 
be  satisfied,  if  fully  developed  and  fearless,  with  any 
thing  short  of  absolute  nothing !  I  heard  Peter  laugh 
as  you  do  when  a  pretty  woman  flirts  with  you  under 
cover.  He  accompanied  her  to  her  car,  bestowred  her 
in  it,  and  returned,  still  flushed,  smiling  and  running 
his  fingers  through  his  hair,  which  is  a  man's  way  of 
kicking  his  wings  when  his  spirit  crows. 

After  this  he  saw  a  good  deal  of  Isobel  Sangster, 
and  I  think  he  would  have  married  her  if  she  had 
been  of  disposing  mind  toward  him.  But  Peter  was 
only  one  of  those  experiments  she  made  in  the  mysti 
cism  of  love  along  her  adventurous  way.  Looking 
backward  I  can  see  that  she  was  good  for  him,  like 
having  the  measles  and  whooping  cough  when  he  was 


108  MY    SON 

a  little  boy,  because  she  was  one  of  those  modern 
women  who  disease  society,  and  Peter  had  to  deal 
with  them  so  constantly  from  this  time  that  it  was 
just  as  well  he  had  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  type 
to  recognize  them.  But  at  the  time  I  was  very  un 
easy.  I  thought  he  ought  to  marry,  and  I  frequently 
told  him  so;  but  no  mother  really  wants  her  son  to 
marry,  and  I  knew  it  was  not  in  me  to  bear  with  such 
a  woman  as  my  son's  wife. 

This  was  the  situation  early  in  March  of  1917. 
Peter  was  preaching  essays  on  the  gospels  and  lectur 
ing  at  the  Women's  Club  and  courting  Isobel  Sang- 
ster.  I  was  crimping  my  front  hair,  dressing  for  din 
ner  and  keeping  a  cook  for  the  first  time  in  my  life. 
I  felt  wickedly  prosperous  and  could  not  help  myself, 
because  Peter  instited  that  we  ought  to  live  up  to 
the  social  standing  of  the  people  in  his  church  in 
order  not  to  embarrass  them  or  seem  mean. 

Since  1914  the  war  had  been  going  on  in  Europe. 
We  discussed  this  war  as  neutrals  should.  Peter 
prayed  for  the  war-stricken  nations  every  Sunday. 
And  we  had  bazaars  to  get  funds  for  them.  Charity 
was  no  longer  religious,  it  became  fashionable.  Our 
bounties  fell  alike  on  the  just  and  the  unjust  in  this 
conflict.  We  sent  hospital  supplies,  food  and  funds 
to  all  the  belligerents.  We  sent  a  Christmas  ship  in 
1914  that  left  units  of  dolls  at  Havre,  Liverpool  and 
Rotterdam.  Even  in  1915,  we  allowed  that  flivver 
dove,  Oscar  II,  to  sail  as  a  missionary  ship  of  peace,. 


MY    SON  109 

though  we  were  never  neutrals.  No  nation  can  be 
in  a  world  flaming  with  war.  It  may  not  take  up 
arms,  but  it  is  bound  to  take  sides  in  the  conflict. 

Everyone  knows  what  happened  in  April,  1917. 
We  joined  the  Allies,  and  this  whole  nation  went  into 
the  war,  not  simply  the  great  armies  we  transported, 
but  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  it  served. 

It  is  not  for  an  old  circuit-rider's  wife  to  describe 
the  transfiguration  through  which  we  passed  during 
this  period.  I  have  always  carried  side  arms  as  a 
Christian  soldier,  but  this  was  another  matter  alto 
gether.  I  was  not  equal  to  the  situation.  All  I  could 
do  was  to  spin  round  and  round  in  a  circle  somewhere 
inside  and  watch  the  world  lay  hold  of  Almighty 
God — when  I  had  thought  this  world  was  dead  in 
its  trespasses  and  sins. 

The  members  of  Peter's  church  swarmed  like  bees 
into  a  state  of  violent  activity.  Mrs.  Buckhart 
dropped  her  browbeaten  poor  people  and  went  in  for 
Red  Cross  service.  She  organized  a  chapter  at  Drum 
head  and  worked  us  as  if  that  was  a  sweatshop. 
Isobel  Sangster  took  one  look  round  and  sailed  out 
of  it  all  for  France  to  join  a  canteen.  Peter  was  at 
last  a  preacher.  He  was  exalted  and  he  was  sublime. 
He  inspired  his  people  with  the  wrath  of  the  gospel 
against  our  enemies.  He  prayed  with  furious  passion 
for  the  success  of  our  arms.  My  son  became  a 
spiritual  man  imbued  with  a  declamatory  soul.  And 
at  last  it  seemed  that  we  were  not  only  permitted  to 


110  MY    SON 

hate  our  enemies,  it  was  our  duty  to  do  so.  This  felt 
very  queer  to  me,  but  I  did  it.  All  along  I  had  al 
lowed  myself  a  little  latitude  secretly  for  compas 
sion  toward  all  men  who  fell  in  battle,  and  toward 
all  women  who  lost  their  husbands  and  sons;  but 
now  I  felt  obliged  to  quench  my  spirit  and  leave  our 
enemies  to  the  awful  mercies  of  God. 

This  record  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  war,  how 
ever,  except  as  this  war  affected  my  son  and  his 
church.  He  was  now  not  only  a  preacher  but  an 
executive  of  so  much  ability  that  his  services  were 
constantly  in  demand  for  organizing  war  work  and 
helping  with  the  various  drives  for  bonds  and  other 
funds.  I  began  to  entertain  a  fearful  respect  for 
Peter,  and  I  sometimes  interrupted  the  stream  of 
battle  prayers  flowing  into  heaven,  with  a  little  peti 
tion  that  the  Lord  would  forgive  me  for  misjudging 
my  own  son.  No  one,  I  suppose,  could  conceive  then 
what  the  effects  of  the  war  would  be  on  our  religious 
life.  We  only  knew  that  everybody  had  been  con 
verted  and  believed  in  God,  and  our  Annies  in 
France.  We  sent  the  Almighty  with  them  in  our 
prayer.  We  had  no  revivals  in  the  churches  for  the 
duration  of  the  war,  not  one.  We  did  not  say  it  in  so 
many  words,  but  the  idea  was:  "Lord,  dismiss  us 
from  thy  tender  mercies,  but  be  with  our  sons  in 
France !  Save  them  if  thou  canst,  but  give  them  the 
strength  and  courage  to  win  this  war."  This  .was 
our  faith,  that  the  victory  would  settle  everything. 


MY    SON  111 

And  it  transfigured  this  nation.  We  literally  ful 
filled  the  Scriptures.  We  were  ready  to  spend  every 
thing,  sacrifice  everything.  We  lived  as  original 
men,  in  our  deeds  and  emotions.  We  required  a 
braver  language.  Fine  old  words  like  golden  spears 
buried  in  the  dust  of  centuries  dark  and  deep  must 
be  found  and  set  to  martial  music.  We  trod  the 
measures  of  an  epic. 

Three  hundred  thousand  of  our  young  men  fell 
in  France.  Nearly  a  hundred  thousand  died  of  their 
wounds.  But  there  was  no  such  thing  as  death. 
Nothing  remained  to  be  chosen  but  immortality. 
They  made  haste  to  choose  it.  They  gave  their  lives 
as  you  offer  a  toast,  joyfully,  smiling  over  the  brim 
of  the  cup  that  was  to  be  broken  presently. 

We  obtained  the  victory  as  much  by  faith  in  an 
ideal  as  by  the  force  of  our  arms.  But  we  did  not 
win  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  nor  peace  on  earth,  nor 
even  the  League  of  Nations  to  enforce  it.  This 
League  of  Nations  turns  out  to  be  a  sublime  figment 
of  the  human  imagination,  too  expensive  to  finance 
unless  we  continue  to  give  all  our  goods  to  our  poor 
relations  in  this  league,  and  to  be  subject  to  the 
common  devil  of  discord  in  all  men. 

Sometimes  I  feel  sorry  for  Mr.  Woodrow  Wilson 
in  my  narrow  way  and  strictly  according  to  the  Old 
Testament  part  of  my  faith  in  the  Lord.  He  re 
minds  me  of  a  clean-shaven  Moses  who  added  four 
teen  fine  points  to  the  Ten  Commandments  and  ac- 


112  MY   SON 

tually  did  lead  one  people  and  was  by  way  of  lead 
ing  several  other  peoples  with  all  the  fervor  of  an 
evangelist  and  the  brimstone  anathemas  of  a  prophet 
through  the  blazing  wilderness  of  this  world.  But, 
like  Moses,  he  only  came  in  sight  of  the  promised 
land.  Because  he  had  done  something  or  other  that 
he  should  not  have  done,  the  Lord  permitted  him 
just  to  have  a  glimpse  of  it  from  a  high  place  as 
a  sort  of  rebuke  for  not  having  behaved  well  enough 
to  inherit  it.  I  reckon  that  happens  in  a  small  way 
to  all  of  us.  We  never  do  set  foot  on  our  promised 
lands.  We  just  see  them  from  afar,  and  die  before 
we  get  there. 

I  am  just  a  woman,  gray  and  tired  out  and  laid 
away  a  trifle  uneasily  in  my  Scriptures,  but  comfort 
able  enough  to  feel  that  I  can  get  along  very  well 
without  changing  my  scenes  to  a  new  and  strange 
promised  land,  even  if  it  does  flow  with  milk  and 
honey.  I  never  saw  a  land  yet  that  produced  only 
milk  and  honey  just  flowing.  I  doubt  if  Paradise 
does.  We  shall  probably  be  obliged  even  there  to 
keep  on  earning  our  eternal  livelihood  by  dealing  in 
stars  or  something  to  keep  us  occupied  and  out  of 
mischief. 

So,  though  I  believed  in  this  League  of  Nations  as 
I  believe  in  salvation,  not  that  I  ever  felt  entirely 
saved,  I  had  my  doubts  about  whether  we  could 
afford  that  much  salvation  in  this  present  world. 
And  I  never  did  believe  we  could  produce  that  much 


MY    SON  113 

harmony.  1  have  not  lived  all  my  life  in  the 
Methodist  itineracy  without  learning  that  Christian 
people  with  different  creeds  cannot  pray  and  worship 
the  Lord  together  in  the  same  church.  The  very 
seat  of  perversity  in  a  man  is  that  place  in  his  soul 
where  he  keeps  his  particular  spiritual  doctrine  by 
which  he  will  be  saved,  and  no  other.  This  house 
hold  of  nations  contemplated  by  the  league  covenant 
seemed  to  me  dangerously  impractical.  It  is  the 
same  idea  Ham,  Shem  and  Japheth  had  of  keeping 
house  together  for  rrtutual  protection  and  to  cut  down 
expenses.  It  will  not  work  because  either  Ham, 
Shem  or  Japheth  will  not  work,  and  becomes  a 
dead  expense  with  his  whole  family.  And  because 
even  if  they  do  work,  they  will  not  agree  about  the 
domestic  details  of  this  hodge-podge  establishment. 
Some  day,  and  very  soon  after  they  have  shaken 
hands  and  said  how  glad  they  are  to  see  each  other 
and  be  fixed  up  so  well  for  living  happy  ever  after, 
there  will  be  a  family  row,  and  one  of  the  poor  rela 
tions  will  get  kicked  out  or  one  of  the  rich  ones 
will  strut  out  and  found  a  house  just  close  enough 
by  to  keep  up  the  row. 

I  did  my  Red  Cross  duties  and  all  my  other  duties 
very  quietly  during  the  war  because  I  suffered  much 
from  this  secret  sin  of  unbelief  in  what  it  would  ac 
complish. 

Sometimes  I  went  to  a  mass  meeting  where  Peter 
was  the  chief  speaker.  He  had  a  gift  for  public 


114  MY    SON 

speaking  that  you  would  never  suspect  from  the  ser 
mons  he  preached.  He  was  a  perfect  aeroplane  of 
eloquence  when  it  came  to  exciting  the  patriotic  en 
thusiasm  of  a  crowd.  He  made  gestures,  he  stepped 
like  a  warhorse  scenting  battle.  And  he  would  let 
out  something  like  this  in  the  sonorous  tones  of  a 
man  who  has  a  tempest  in  his  'breast:  "The  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  and  the  Constitution  we  have 
are  not  simply  the  creed  of  American  liberty  but  they 
belong  to  the  New  Testament  of  the  liberties  of  man 
kind,  and  if  these  Scriptures  are  violated  the  salva 
tion  of  the  world  is  in  danger!" 

Then  the  crowd  would  shout  and  Peter  would 
pause  to  mop  his  face  with  his  handkerchief.  And 
I  would  feel  my  chin  quiver  and  my  countenance 
breaking  up  and  the  tears  in  my  eyes,  so  that  I  would 
be  obliged  to  take  off  my  glasses  and  wipe  them  be 
fore  I  could  see  my  son  clearly.  All  that — yes;  but 
at  the  same  time  the  quiet,  plain,  bareheaded  woman 
that  I  am  in  secret  was  sitting  in  the  back  door  of 
my  mind,  doubting  if  it  was  so,  what  Peter  said, 
what  the  people  meant  when  they  shouted,  even  the 
quality  of  the  tears  I  was  drying  off  my  spectacles. 

I  used  to  go  away  by  myself  sometimes  as  you  do 
when  you  are  about  to  pray  in  secret — and  not  pray 
at  all,  but  just  sit  and  think  the  thoughts  I  wanted 
to  think.  When  you  have  lived  a  long  time  under 
the  impression  that  the  Lord  is  from  everlasting  to 
everlasting,  and  that  his  providences  are  not  deter- 


MY    SON  115 

mined  by  the  flurries  in  the  minds  and  affairs  of  men 
it  feels  queer  to  realize  suddenly  that  we  have  a  re 
ligion  for  the  duration  of  the  war,  which  was  not 
the  kind  we  had  before,  nor  of  a  nature  to  steady 
men's  souls  in  the  long  siege  of  living  in  what  we 
call  peace  because  it  is  not  war. 

That  phrase,  "for  the  duration  of  the  war," 
troubled  me.  If  you  change  the  laws,  life  and  even 
religion  of  a  nation  to  meet  a  great  emergency,  what 
I  wanted  to  know  was  how  we  should  change  back 
again.  Peter  said  that  we  should  never  be  the  same 
people  again,  and  the  world  would  never  be  the  same 
world.  It  might  not  be  better,  but  it  certainly  would 
be  different.  The  individual  man  had  disappeared 
off  the  face  of  the  earth.  If  you  saw  one  you  only 
saw  a  digit  of  the  great  multiple  of  mankind.  The 
terms  we  used  were  collective — peoples  and  nations. 
It  was  a  hundred  thousand  of  this  and  two  hundred 
thousand  of  that,  even  if  it  was  a  matter  of  socks 
and  sweaters.  You  might  have  only  a  dollar  in  your 
pocket,  but  you  were  obliged  to  think  about  so  many 
million  dollars'  worth  of  canteen  supplies  or  so  many 
billion  dollars'  worth  of  bonds.  We  lost  the  strong 
sense  of  personal  affections,  and  hate  became  an 
international  term  of  inspiration.  We  were  col 
lected,  organized,  down  to  the  last  thought.  My 
attributes  would  be  your  attributes,  and  yours  would 
be  everybody's.  Our  souls  would  be  like  black-eyed 
peas,  all  alike. 


116  MY   SON 

Now  I  never  hoped  to  be  better  than  other  peo 
ple,  but  we  have  the  inalienable  right  to  be  differ 
ent,  at  least  as  one  man's  nose  differs  from  another 
man's  nose.  I  stuck  to  that  and  to  the  prayers  that 
fitted  my  own  bowed  head,  merely  mentioning  this 
war  to  the  Lord  in  the  larger  sentences  at  the  end  of 
my  prayer,  as  I  formerly  reminded  him  of  the  heath 
ens  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth. 

At  last,  and  quite  unexpectedly,  the  war  ended 
and  a  great  many  of  our  best  people  were  suddenly 
thrown  out  of  employment.  I  have  often  wondered 
why  in  all  the  agitation  that  followed  about  pro 
viding  emlpoyment  for  the  millions  of  real  work 
ers  turned  out  of  the  Army,  shipyards  and  building 
branches  there  was  no  agitation  at  all  about  provid 
ing  something  to  do  for  these  workless  people  who 
had  worked  so  hard  during  the  war  and  had  thus  ac 
quired  for  the  first  time  habits  of  service.  Millions 
of  idle  fashionable  women  were  suddenly  released 
and  allowed  to  drift  back  into  the  innocuous  and 
vicious  diversions  of  their  class,  but  with  their  minds 
stretched  by  big  terms  and  big  notions,  current  for 
the  duration  of  the  war. 

Two  weeks  after  the  armistice  was  signed  the 
Annual  Conference  of  our  church  met.  There  were 
some  queer  doings  at  this  Conference.  The  young 
Methodist  preachers  who  had  felt  the  call  to  go  over 
seas  with  our  troops  as  chaplains  had  been  allowed 
to  go.  No  one  interfered  with  their  consciences  in 


MY    SON  117 

this  matter.  But  when  some  of  them  returned  in 
time  to  take  work  again  at  this  Conference  they  had 
the  same  experience  that  the  railroad  strikers  faced 
in  New  York  recently  when  they  decided  to  go  back 
to  work,  and  discovered  that  they  had  lost  their 
seniority. 

It  was  not  Jesus  but  Paul  who  recommended  the 
office  of  elders  and  bishops.  I  have  always  thought 
this  was  a  very  significant  circumstance ;  not  that  you 
cannot  be  a  Christian  and  walk  softly  before  the 
Lord  if  you  are  a  bishop,  but  it  must  be  very  hard 
to  do  it,  and  the  temptation  to  swat  a  young  preacher 
over  the  head  sometimes  for  getting  a  call  to  leave 
the  circuit  you  put  him  on  to  serve  must  be  very 
strong. 

Peter  was  sent  to  the  First  Church  in  this  city. 
This  is  the  best  appointment  in  the  Conference.  And 
certainly  Peter  was  better  qualified  to  fill  it  than 
a  young  circuit  rider  who  had  done  battlefield  drudg 
ery  for  the  Lord  succoring  the  wounded,  comforting 
the  despondent  and  praying  for  the  dying,  and  writ 
ing  their  last  letters  home  that  their  hearts  might 
rest  easy  beneath  the  little  white  crosses  of  honor 
and  sacrifice.  That  is  emergency  work,  and  does 
not  fit  a  man  to  become  the  pastor  of  a  big  congre 
gation  nor  to  manage  the  affairs  of  a  rich  church. 

Peter  had  the  right  experience.  He  was  a  smart 
young  preacher,  to  begin  with.  He  had  proved  ac- 


118  MY    SON 

ceptable  to  the  exacting  and  fashionable  congrega 
tion  at  Drumhead.  His  war  work  had  given  him 
a  practical  course  in  financing  on  a  large  scale.  He 
knew  all  the  latest  methods  of  organizing.  He  had 
studied  the  psychology  of  propaganda  as  his  father 
studied  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation.  He  was 
now  familiar  with  all  classes  of  men,  not  as  a  pastor 
but  as  a  promoter  of  bonds,  patriotism  and  service. 
He  had  been  obliged  to  use  the  policies  of  business 
men  and  he  already  had  an  intellectual  man's  toler 
ance.  Finally,  he  had  a  recent  and  notable  record  as  a 
popular  speaker.  This  is  the  best  preacher  to  choose 
for  a  big  church  with  an  enormous  membership, 
representing  all  classes,  from  millionaires  to  labor 
ers  and  paupers.  Such  a  church  is  remarkably  dem 
ocratic.  I  do  not  know  any  other  organization  in 
the  world  that  anybody  can  join  with  the  same  im 
punity. 

I  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  I  had  given 
Peter  up  by  this  time,  but  I  was  confused.  The 
world  did  not  appear  to  me  to  be  safe,  but  it  might 
be.  If  the  churches  were  spiritual  it  was  on  such  a 
large  scale  I  could  not  comprehend  it,  but  they 
might  be.  If  Peter  had  any  communion  with  the 
Holy  Spirit,  if  he  wrestled  in  prayer  for  the  souls  of 
his  people,  he  did  not  show  the  signs  William  used 
to  have  of  the  struggle.  But  I  had  to  admit  that 
he  assumed  the  duties  of  this  terrific  pastorate  with 


MY    SON  119 

soberness  and  courage.  It  required  more  than  usual 
firmness  on  my  part  to  unpack  Kitto's  Commentaries 
and  place  them  in  the  handsome  library  we  had  now, 
because  the  stewards  of  Peter's  church  frequently 
called  on  him  there.  Well,  let  him  explain  the  best 
way  he  could.  At  least  they  were  not  Balzac's 
novels. 

But  I  took  the  old  box  of  sermons  up  into  the 
attic.  My  faith  in  them  had  not  failed,  but  my  hope 
that  Peter  would  read  and  study  them  had  failed 
at  last.  So  I  just  sat  the  old  box  up  there  under 
the  window,  sat  down  beside  it  for  a  little  while  and 
thought  of  William.  How  different  his  ministry 
had  been,  how  hard  his  life  had  been,  how  little 
success  he  had,  measured  by  these  new  church  stand 
ards;  and  how  different  everything  had  been  with 
Peter,  who  could  not  hold  a  light  to  his  father  when 
it  came  to  preaching  the  gospel  and  telling  men 
the  truth  with  courage  about  their  sins. 

I  always  became  a  little  heated  and  resentful 
when  I  compared  Peter  with  his  father.  So  now 
I  took  off  my  glasses,  wiped  the  widow's  tears  from 
them,  snapped  them  back  on  and  went  downstairs, 
stepping  strong  with  my  head  up. 

As  it  happened,  I  passed  Peter  in  the  hall,  and  I 
passed  him  as  if  he  were  not  there,  which  is  not 
my  custom.  I  usually  call  him  "my  son"  or  give 
him  the  blessing  of  a  mother's  look,  but  this  time 


120  MY   SON 

I  did  not  turn  my  head,  and  I  made  my  skirts  swish 
the  way  a  woman  will  when  her  sails  are  set  against 
the  weather. 

"Mother!"  I  heard  him  exclaim. 

"Yes,  Peter,"  I  answered  as  if  Peter  was  the  gnat 
on  the  bull's  horn. 

"What's  the  trouble*?"  he  demanded,  overtaking 
me. 

"I  am  thinking  of  your  father,  my  son,"  I  an 
swered  coldly.  "He  was  a  great  preacher  and  he  was 
sent  to  be  the  pastor  of  the  poor.  He  suffered  every 
thing.  You  are  not  a  great  preacher,  and  you  are 
sent  to  be  the  pastor  of  the  prosperous.  And  you 
do  not  suffer,  but  you  have  everything.  You  are 
like  a  rich  man,  Peter!" 

He  laughed;  he  would  do  that,  turn  my  point 
against  him  on  his  smile.  He  stepped  close  to  me 
and  drew  my  head  to  his  breast. 

"There  is  nobody  like  you  left  in  this  world, 
mother,"  he*  began,  still  laughing.  "You  are  still 
jealous  for  father." 

"No,  not  that " 

"Yes,"  he  interrupted.  "You  are  not  father's 
widow.  You  are  still  the  arc  and  covenant  of  his 
faith,  his  way  and  his  preaching.  Spare  me  a  little 
of  your  confidence." 

"You  have  my  confidence,  and  I  wish  you  had 
your  father's  faith,"  I  answered. 


MY   SON  121 

"Sometimes,  just  lately,  I  wish  that,  too,  mother," 
he  said  soberly. 

He  must  have  had  some  premonition  of  what  this 
coming  year  held  for  him.  Your  Gethsemane  can 
be  anywhere. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IN  the  old  days,  when  William  was  a  young 
preacher  on  the  new  ground  circuits  in  the  mountain 
regions  of  our  Conference,  we  lived  in  little  weather- 
beaten  parsonages  far  out  in  the  country,  and  our 
nearest  neighbor  was  never  another  family,  but  one 
of  William's  churches. 

I  was  often  lonely,  especially  when  he  was  away 
at  some  distant  appointment.  The  only  thing  you 
can  say  for  a  church  as  your  nearest  neighbor  is  that 
it  is  there,  on  a  higher,  greener  hill,  and  that  it 
stands  for  the  best  you  can  hope  for  or  believe,  but 
it  never  looks  across  the  road  and  speaks  to  you  when 
you  are  sitting  alone  on  your  doorstep  at  night  wish 
ing  and  listening  and  wondering  how  you  can  go 
on  bearing  this  silence.  It  just  stands  with  its  belfry 
sticking  up  toward  the  other,  brighter  worlds  over 
head,  terribly  white  and  still  in  the  darkness.  The 
tall  tombstones  and  the  lowlier  ones  stick  up  be 
hind  it;  or  they  lean  a  little,  not  as  if  they  were 
falling,  but  trying  to  escape.  Sometimes  at  night, 
when  there  were  no  voices,  no  wheels  rumbling  along 
the  road,  no  bells  tinkling  in  the  distant  pastures, 
the  wind  used  to  whisk  by  on  its  business  and  blow 

122 


MY   SON  123 

shadows  across  these  tombs,  glistening  in  the  moon 
light,  so  that  they  seemed  to  stir  and  move  like  long 
wing  feathers  and  short  closer  feathers  scattered 
about  that  church. 

During  these  first  years,  when  I  was  still  very 
young  and  only  recently  married  out  of  the  world 
into  the  gospel,  William  frequently  asked  if  I  was 
afraid  to  be  alone  in  the  parsonage  until  he  returned 
the  next  day.  And  I  always  assured  him  that  I  was 
not  afraid.  The  bravest  thing  to  do  when  you  are 
not  brave  is  to  profess  courage  and  act  accordingly. 

So  I  always  sent  William  forth  to  his  appointment 
with  a  peaceful  mind.  When  he  was  mounted  on  his 
horse  I  used  to  run  out  sometimes,  place  my  foot  on 
his  in  the  stirrup  and  he  would  reach  down,  draw 
me  up,  bend  over  and  kiss  me.  That  would  be  my 
young  husband,  but  the  priest  in  him  invariably 
looked  back  over  his  shoulder  and  said  something  like 
this:  "Remember,  he  that  keepeth  Israel  shall  neither 
slumber  nor  sleep." 

That  might  be  so,  but  as  he  disappeared  at  a 
smart  canter  down  the  road  Israel  seemed  a  long  way 
off.  And  this  way  he  had  of  consigning  me  to  the 
care  of  just  the  God  of  Israel  was  not  so  comforting 
as  he  imagined.  He  had  the  advantage  of  me.  He 
had  the  witness  of  the  Spirit.  He  was  never  alone 
anywhere.  I  had  no  such  experience.  I  reckon 
the  closest  I  came  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  or 
Israel,  or  any  of  the  Scriptural  countries,  was  the 


124  MY   SON 

sense  I  had  of  union  with  William,  who  was  a  citizen 
of  them.  I  am  being  hand-raised  by  his  gospel,  so 
to  speak,  but  it  was  not  the  same  as  having  fear 
less  faith.  And  even  to  this  day  I  seem  always  to 
lay  my  hand  confidently  in  William's  faith  like  a 
clasp  when  I  pray. 

But  at  the  time  of  which  I  write  the  promise  of 
life  everlasting  did  not  satisfy  my  heart.  I  wanted 
the  companionship  of  people  who  lived  and  laughed. 
I  used  to  grow  weary  of  the  long  peace  of  the  hills, 
of  the  quiet  days  and  the  still  nights.  I  wanted  to 
take  a  journey  somewhere,  anywhere,  so  it  should 
be  a  long  and  swift  one.  But  I  never  could  go  and 
leave  William.  I  felt  as  close  to  him  as  the  rib  in 
his  side.  I  had  the  conceit  that  he  needed  me,  some 
one  whom  he  did  not  have  to  pray  to  be  present,  but 
who  was  always  literally  there  in  the  flesh  to  care 
for  him  on  the  sly  when  he  did  not  know  he  could 
be  comforted  at  all  except  by  his  Lord. 

When  I  was  oppressed  beyond  endurance  by  this 
long  imprisonment  of  my  traveling  mind  in  some 
lonely  country  parsonage,  I  remember  practicing  a 
certain  illusion  when  he  was  away  on  his  circuit. 
I  might  be  sitting  on  the  front  doorstep  as  usual  in 
the  moonlit  night,  but  I  would  imagine  myself  start 
ing  off  on  just  the  earth  through  space.  It  was  mov 
ing  with  incredible  velocity,  rocking  from  side  to 
side  in  its  orbit,  with  the  furious  oscillations  of  this 
spinning  speed,  making  it  dark  when  it  turned  one 


MY    SON  125 

way  and  light  when  my  side  swung  back  beneath 
the  sun.  I  would  sit  and  imagine  how  fast  I  was 
going  until  my  head  was  swimming.  Then  I  forgot 
the  church  across  the  way,  all  the  little  things  and 
the  little  pathways  up  and  down  the  hills  of  my  days 
and  William's  days.  I  could  look  back  at  the  stars 
and  feel  myself  swaying  at  the  thought  of  how  many 
we  were  leaving  behind,  mere  specks  of  light  on  the 
horizon.  I  thought  of  the  roar  of  far-off  constella 
tions  as  I  passed;  just  myself,  you  understand, 
of  all  the  world  of  men,  taking  this  journey 
through  immeasurable  spaces,  sitting  on  my  own 
doorstep,  because  it  was  the  only  way  I  could  leave 
home. 

William  never  knew  of  this  star  riding  I  used  to 
do  in  his  absence,  for  I  was  always  there  when  he 
returned,  with  no  sign  in  my  manner  of  the  terrific 
flight  I  had  made,  doing  my  household  duties  or 
watching  for  him,  very  prim  and  demure,  with  not 
a  hair  of  my  head  blown  out  of  place.  You  may 
do  very  queer  things  in  the  spirit  without  its  being 
seen  or  heard  of. 

So  many  years  have  passed  since  then.  My  star 
traveling  imagination  settled  down  long  ago.  But 
now,  seated  here  in  Peter's  big  church  on  Sunday 
mornings,  like  a  very  placid  period  of  an  old  woman 
at  the  end  of  a  long  sentence,  my  thoughts  went  back 
to  those  first  days  on  the  lonely  circuits,  when  the 
only  house  in  sight  was  the  church  across  the  road, 


126  MY   SON 

when  the  season  changed  from  winter  weather  and 
the  Lord  said  "Yea!  Yea!"  to  the  little  green  leaves, 
and  they  answered  from  every  tiny  bud  and  bough. 
And  they  changed  the  sound  of  the  wind  to  sweet 
ness  with  the  grace  of  their  dipping  and  turning. 
To  me  it  was  like  having  young  company  all  about 
the  parsonage. 

I  do  not  know  why  this  vast  congregation  remind 
ed  me  of  that,  unless  it  was  that  these  people  were  no 
company.  They  gathered  like  a  strange  phenomenon 
of  life  every  Sunday  morning  in  this  church,  so  many 
strangers,  no  bond  binding  them  to  each  other,  and 
dissolving,  disappearing  at  the  end  of  an  hour.  Then 
you  could  not  find  them.  You  did  not  know  where 
they  lived,  nor  how.  The  whole  thing  was  too  big 
for  me.  It  was  like  trying  to  read  humanity  in 
diamond  type  to  look  at  this  sea  of  faces,  so  different 
from  the  little  flocks  I  had  known.  I  could  dis 
tinguish  a  foreigner  from  an  American  by  the  way 
his  mustaches  sat  up  like  an  offense  on  his  face,  but 
I  could  not  see  a  single  woman  that  looked  like 
the  president  of  the  missionary  society,  nor  any  girls 
with  the  faces  of  prayer-meeting  virgins.  And  for 
the  first  time  in  my  life  I  could  not  recognize  a 
steward  by  the  way  he  looked  or  the  place  where  he 
sat  in  this  church. 

Only  one  man  shouted  "Amen!"  when  Peter 
prayed.  He  was  an  old  bald-headed  person  with  an 
apostrophe  nose  and  a  chin  beard  cut  as  square  as 


MY   SON  127 

a  shingle,  who  had  apparently  been  banished  to  the 
front  bench,  which  he  inhabited  alone.  I  supposed 
that  he  was  the  leading  steward  until  I  learned  that 
he  was  only  a  carpenter  brought  over  from  the  past 
before  this  became  a  really  great  church. 

I  had  a  strange  enlightenment  as  to  the  manifold 
characters  of  a  steward  when  Peter  introduced  Mr. 
Cathcart,  an  elderly  katydid  sort  of  man,  who  wore 
a  sage-green  suit  of  clothes  and  a  sky-blue  cravat. 
He  was  a  club  man,  a  capitalist  and  the  chairman  of 
Peter's  board  of  stewards!  Maybe  these  people 
were  good,  but  the  best  goodness  I  have  known  never 
looked  so  prosperous  and  worldly.  How  distant  all 
that  plain  piety  of  the  hills,  and  how  long  ago  it 
seemed  now  since  I  had  heard  the  road  of  constella 
tions  swinging  the  curves  of  my  dreams  in  these 
quieter  places  beneath  the  other  stars ! 

Peter,  however,  was  in  no  way  confounded.  He 
had  the  assurance  of  an  able  preacher.  And  these 
people  liked  him.  More  and  more  he  impressed  me 
as  a  good  business  man  of  the  gospel,  at  the  head 
now  of  a  really  great  business  with  nearly  a  thou 
sand  workers  under  him.  He  had  a  financial  com 
mittee.  He  made  bills  and  O.  K.'d  bills.  He  saw 
printers.  He  had  a  secretary  and  two  deaconesses. 

This  is  as  good  a  place  as  any  to  set  down  the  way 
the  presiding  elder  has  of  checking  up  the  work  of 
preachers  under  him.  Each  pastor  in  his  district  re 
ceives  a  list  of  printed  questions.  I  have  counted 


128  MY   SON 

them.  There  are  seventy-three  in  all.  The  preacher 
in  charge  is  required  to  answer  them  and  turn  the  list 
in  at  each  Quarterly  Conference.  Here  is  a  sample 
of  these  questions : 

"How  many  revivals  have  you  held  this  year?" 

"Who  did  the  preaching?" 

"How  many  sermons  have  you  preached  this 
year?' 

"How  many  homes  have  you  visited?" 

"In  how  many  homes  have  you  held  prayer? 
(Each  time  should  be  counted.)" 

"How  many  infants  have  you  baptized?  (Do 
you  preach  it  in  the  homes?)" 

"In  your  opinion  will  the  charge  pay  out?" 

And  so  on  and  so  forth.  There  is  nothing  private 
left  between  a  preacher  and  just  his  Lord  when  he 
has  answered  these  questions.  He  cannot  have  a 
single  secret  prayer  with  a  sinner  without  setting  it 
down  in  the  credit  column  of  his  account  book  with 
the  presiding  elder.  But  the  authorities  of  the 
church  can  get  a  quarterly  weather  report  of  the  con 
dition  and  finances  of  the  whole  church,  as  the  Gov 
ernment  gets  crop  reports.  It  must  be  right.  I  have 
nothing  to  say  against  the  arrangement,  but  it  does 
seem  queer  for  a  preacher  out  making  pastoral  calls 
to  credit  himself  with  them,  and  maybe  a. prayer  or 
two,  or  a  good  deed.  No  power  on  earth  could  have 
made  William  do  it.  He  would  have  lied  about  his 
prayers  and  his  alms.  But  Peter  was  obliged  to  call 


MY   SON  129 

in  help  before  his  Quarterly  Conference,  to  add  up 
the  things  that  had  been  done  in  the  Lord's  name, 
I  used  to  wonder  if  he  gave  his  deaconesses  credit  for 
all  the  prayers  they  said.  Maybe  they  were  allowed 
to  be  decently  silent  about  their  little  petitions 
among  the  poor. 

This  was  the  winter  of  1918-19,  when  the  scourge 
of  influenza  swept  over  the  country.  The  churches, 
schools  and  theaters  were  closed.  Thousands  died  of 
the  disease  in  this  city.  It  was  especially  fatal 
among  the  poor.  There  were  two  hundred  cases  at 
one  time  among  this  class  of  members  in  Peter's 
church,  respectable  people  who  worked,  but  who  only 
managed  a  living  wage  in  these  high-price  hard  times 
of  war  prosperity. 

The  first  year  William  and  I  were  in  the  itiner 
ancy  there  was  an  epidemic  of  some  kind  on  the  Red- 
wine  circuit.  And  there  were  not  enough  well  people 
to  nurse  the  sick.  We  did  it.  We  went  from  house  to 
house,  some  of  them  miles  apart,  in  the  dead  hours 
of  the  night  to  care  for  these  afflicted  ones.  Wil 
liam  comforted  the  dying  and  I  helped  lay  out  the 
dead.  We  did  not  go  home  until  the  survivors  were 
convalescing.  Then  we  both  came  down  with  the 
disorder  and  were  near  to  death  ourselves.  I  do 
not  remember  that  we  experienced  any  exalted  sense 
of  self-sacrifice  in  exposing  ourselves  performing  this 


180  MY   SON 

service.  My  recollection  is  that  we  did  it  as  a  mat 
ter  of  course. 

Peter  managed  his  epidemic  of  influenza  different 
ly.  I  thought,  of  course,  we  would  devote  ourselves 
to  nursing  the  sick,  but  he  would  not  hear  to  it.  I 
must  not  expose  myself.  .He  would  not  expose  him 
self  unnecessarily.  If  he  performed  his  duty  as 
pastor  of  that  church  he  could  not  afford  to  come 
down  with  influenza.  Besides,  the  church  had  a 
committee  whose  business  it  was  to  meet  this  emerg 
ency.  There  was  no  need  to  risk  our  lives  when  it 
could  be  attended  to  more  efficiently  and  scientifi 
cally  by  people  who  were  trained  to  do  it.  He  called 
a  meeting  of  his  relief  committee.  They  organized 
the  work,  provided  food  to  nourish  the  sick,  and 
established  kitchens  where  it  might  be  prepared  and 
sent  to  families  stricken  with  the  disease.  They  im 
ported  a  unit  of  nurses  and  the  church  kept  a  doc 
tor  during  this  epidemic. 

I  did  my  share  of  the  work  in  one  of  the  kitchens, 
but  I  never  got  over  feeling  queer  and  mean  about 
sending  soup  to  sick  people's  doors  and  not  going 
in  myself  to  see  how  they  were  getting  on,  to 
straighten  the  bedclothes,  shake  up  their  pillows,  and 
tell  them  I  could  see  they  were  mending  fast. 

I  am  not  saying  that  all  this  was  not  done  by  those 
skillful  nurses  whom  we  commandeered  directly  from 
the  Red  Cross.  I  admit  that  this  is  a  wonderful  and 
mobile  organization,  which  can  be  sent  here  or  there 


MY   SON  131 

to  put  down  a  disease  as  a  regiment  of  soldiers  is  sent 
to  quell  a  riot  or  to  keep  a  strike  within  the  bounds 
of  law  and  order,  but  it  does  seem  to  me  that  the 
trend  of  our  times  is  to  form  corporations  to  attend 
to  our  humanitarian  duties  in  the  same  impersonal 
and  efficient  way  that  other  business  is  conducted. 
We  have  syndicated  those  Scriptures  about  the  Good 
Samaritan.  Instead  of  doing  the  job  ourselves,  we 
telephone  to  the  United  Charities  or  to  a  hospital. 
Maybe  it  is  all  right,  but  it  does  not  feel  so  close 
and  humanly  kind  to  hire  someone  else  to  take  your 
risks  and  do  your  good  deeds.  That  used  to  be  per 
sonal  to  you. 

I  doubt  if  in  the  long  run  it  will  have  the  same 
effect  on  Christian  character  to  merely  contribute 
to  charity.  It  says  plainly  in  the  Scriptures  that  you 
are  to  perform  these  services  yourself.  I  never  can 
bring  myself  to  believe  that  it  comes  to  the  same 
thing  if  you  pay  some  one  else  to  do  it,  even  if  it 
is  better  done.  The  truth  is  that  it  is  not  altogether 
better  done.  Why  do  people  dread  hospitals  so 
much4?  Why  do  the  poor  shrink  so  persistently  from 
the  hired  ministrations  to  their  ills  and  poverty1? 
There  is  a  reason,  my  masters !  It  is  not  all  based  on 
ignorance  and  prejudice.  They  miss  the  human 
touch  of  personal  compassion.  They  are  the  objects 
of  charity,  not  of  love.  There  is  a  difference. 

There  was  a  sick  woman  who  fell  to  my  care  dur 
ing  this  time.  She  was  not  a  member  of  Peter's 


132  MY   SON 

church,  and  I  doubt  if  she  was  a  good  woman.  We 
had  a  kitchen  on  one  of  the  poorer  streets,  and  we 
were  sending  meals  to  the  people  in  that  neighbor 
hood  who  had  influenza.  Word  came  one  day  that 
a  woman  was  very  ill  in  a  room  in  a  tenement  house 
near  by.  Every  nurse  we  had  was  already  over 
worked.  The  doctor  went  once.  He  said  it  was 
wiser  to  give  his  care  to  those  who  might  recover. 
The  impression  I  had  was  that  he  meant  not  much 
would  be  lost  if  this  woman  died,  so  I  slipped  up 
there. 

She  was  a  girl,  no  more.  Her  finery  was  scat 
tered  like  radiant  filth  about  the  wretched  room. 
She  was  lying  in  the  bed,  very  still,  as  one  lies  listen 
ing,  waiting  for  something,  her  bright  hair  sticking 
to  her  head  like  a  tangled  web  of  gold,  her  lips  red 
with  fever,  her  face  pinched  and  white,  blue  eyes 
staring  out  of  it,  meek  with  an  awful  terror. 

It  was  not  the  things  that  I  did,  though  I  did 
everything.  It  was  that  I  called  her  "my  dear"  and 
patted  her  softly  as  we  do  our  children  when  we  put 
them  to  sleep.  She  was  far  past  any  repose.  She 
was  alive  with  the  awful  energy  of  death.  The  only 
thing  she  said  to  me  was:  "Don't  go!  Don't  leave 


me!': 


So  I  called  Peter  over  the  phone  and  told  him  that 
I  was  very  busy,  and  would  not  be  home  until  I 
came. 

Then  I  sat  down  by  this  little  immortal  rag's  bed 


MY   SON  133 

and  made  the  most  of  the  time  she  had  left.  I  have 
a  good  many  kind  Scriptures  laid  away  in  my  mind, 
as  you  keep  soft  white  things  to  cover  you  and  com 
fort  you  when  you  are  not  very  well,  or  strong 
enough  to  bear  harsher  things.  I  said  them  over  to 
her,  as  you  tell  a  bedtime  tale  to  a  child  who  will 
sleep  presently.  I  made  her  own  confession  for  her, 
not  troubling  her  with  questions.  I  took  her  sins  for 
granted.  Nothing  mattered  now  about  all  that.  She 
would  now  have  a  long  time  in  which  to  do  the  will 
of  God.  There  was  only  one  little  thing  to  do,  so 
easy,  that  she  should  be  wishful  for  her  Lord  and  be 
lieve  in  him,  being  sorry  for  her  transgressions. 
Nothing  much  was  going  to  happen,  I  told  her.  She 
would  scarcely  notice  it  the  next  morning.  It  was 
so  natural  to  live  again  after  death. 

Once  or  twice  the  dumb  terror  in  her  eyes  had  the 
best  of  me,  so  I  had  to  keep  the  tears  out  of  my  own 
with  an  effort.  But  it  would  never  do  to  show  the 
white  feather  of  grief  now.  I  remained  firm  and 
confident.  I  chanted  Rock  of  Ages  as  if  it  was 
my  natural  speech,  not  a  song  we  sing,  until  I 
began  to  feel  a  little  like  a  good  kind  old  rock  my 
self. 

I  do  not  know  if  it  was  the  failing  fires  of  life,  the 
gray  embers  of  death  overlying  the  blue  flame,  but 
it  seemed  to  me  I  saw  ease  in  her  eyes  at  last,  a  sort  of 
pale  peace. 

I  have  never  wished  to  meet  my  Lord  alone  at  the 


134,  MY   SON 

very  last.  I  hope  I  shall  be  able  to  look  over  my 
shoulder  and  refer  to  my  friends  that  their  love  may 
recommend  me  to  him.  I  cannot  think  that  I  shall 
be  entirely  sure  of  myself.  I  shall  be  anxious  about 
my  deeds  done  in  the  body.  I  have  a  fear  that  I  may 
forget  my  virtues,  and  that  I  should  like  to  hear  them 
extolled  by  good  people  after  they  think  I  am  too 
far  passed  to  hear  this  kind  praise.  But  if  they  give 
it  my  very  dust  will  hear  it.  How  I  have  wished 
for  love  and  praise  all  my  life,  just  to  hear  the 
things  that  people  never  say  of  you  until  you  are 
out  of  the  competition  of  living  with  them  in  this 
world. 

Thus  I  let  my  heart  so  shine  to  this  girl.  I  made 
myself  a  cloud  of  witnesses  for  her  comfort  and  as 
surance.  She  might  have  lived  if  I  had  known  what 
to  do,  but  I  had  her  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  she 
died  warm  and  befriended.  So  many  victims  of  this 
disease  that  winter  did  not.  People  thought  they 
must  be  careful.  If  you  had  it  they  sent  you  soup 
or  flowers  according  to  your  station  in  life,  and  re 
mained  at  a  safe  distance. 

Now  if  it  is  so  very  important  to  live  they  were 
right;  but  I  doubt  if  it  is  of  the  uttermost  impor 
tance,  just  to  save  your  own  life.  William  never 
thought  so.  He  used  to  take  this  Scripture,  "He  that 
findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it:  and  he  that  loseth  his 
life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it,"  round  with  him  like 


MY   SON  135 

a  charm  when  he  had  some  risk  to  run  or  a  hard 
duty  to  perform. 

It  is  my  secret  and  scornful  belief  that  many  peo 
ple  are  in  danger  of  disinfecting  themselves  out  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  in  their  effort  to  escape  a 
mere  physical  contagion. 

This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  charity  is  no  longer 
a  private  Christian  virtue.  It  has  become  humani- 
tarianism,  one  of  the  big  businesses.  It  is  adminis 
tered  by  this  board  of  directors,  or  that  board,  not 
given  secretly  from  man  to  man.  If  you  provide  a 
hospital  for  the  poor  you  have  not  fulfilled  the  law, 
and  you  will  probably  be  damned  one  way  or  the 
other.  This  is  the  law — that  you  shall  know  your 
poor  by  name ;  that  you  shall  visit  those  in  affliction, 
even  if  they  are  not  widows  and  orphans;  that  you 
shall  contribute  to  their  comfort  without  letting  your 
left  hand  know  what  your  right  hand  is  doing,  much 
less  the  reporters.  You  cannot  cheat  your  fellow 
man  with  impersonal  provisions  for  his  misfortune. 
He  has  a  heart  under  his  ragged  shirt.  You  are  re 
quired  to  communicate  with  that.  The  endowing  of 
an  eleemosynary  institution  for  the  poor  is  only 
paying  a  tax  which  you  owe  in  a  country  where  you 
have  made  a  fortune.  You  owe  it,  therefore  you  do 
not  give  it.  You  have  simply  discharged  an  obli 
gation,  not  to  the  poor  but  to  the  laws  and  insti 
tutions  of  a  country  which  provides  the  conditions 
and  protects  your  interests  while  you  are  exercising 


136  MY   SON 

your  wits  making  this  fortune.  But  it  is  no  proof 
at  all  that  you  are  a  Christian  man,  only  a  decently 
honest  one.  The  man  who  we  know  is  a  Christian 
is  one  who  comes  over  and  gives  you  a  day's  work 
if  your  crops  are  in  the  grass  and  you  are  in  the  bed 
sick  of  a  fever,  because  he  has  nothing  else  to  give 
and  really  cannot  spare  this  day  from  his  own  crop. 
Or  he  keeps  the  undertaker  from  cheating  your 
widow  in  the  price  of  the  cheap  pine  coffin  if  you 
die  of  that  fever.  I  have  seen  Christians  like  this, 
thousands  of  them,  and  my  belief  is  that  they  exer 
cise  more  influence  for  good  over  the  life  of  this 
nation  than  many  mere  philanthropists,  though  the 
thunder  of  their  benefactions  never  deafens  the  ears 
of  the  world.  Their  little  old  homely  deeds  are 
barefooted  and  they  do  not  make  a  noise  when  they 
cross  the  threshold  of  your  house.  But  they  do  come 
when  you  are  not  able  or  are  too  proud  to  stand 
in  line  for  help  before  one  of  these  institutions 
endowed  for  your  relief,  if  by  the  skin  of  your  teeth 
you  can  prove  that  you  deserve  to  be  received 
there. 

What  I  am  saying  may  sound  like  an  old  pea  rat 
tling  in  a  gourd,  the  views  of  a  narrow-minded 
old  woman  who  does  not  realize  that  times  have 
changed  and  that  great  provisions  must*be  made  to 
meet  great  needs.  Still,  the  Lord  does  not  change, 
and  according  to  his  word  charity  belongs  to  the  re 
tail  department  of  the  Christian  religion.  And  I 


MY    SON  137 

feel  obliged  to  stick  to  this — nothing  is  charity  that 
you  do  not  do  with  your  own  hands  and  with  your 
own  heart.  We  are  developing  a  class  of  religious 
magnets  in  this  country;  the  effect  of  their  generos 
ity  is  to  put  the  small  Christian  deed  out  of  counte 
nance  and  to  encourage  us  to  look  to  them  as  a  sort 
of  immediate  providence  which  is  strictly  financial. 
Never  before  has  the  Christian  religion  had  so  much 
capital  behind  it,  and  never  before  was  it  so  near 
to  being  merely  an  international  fund  for  making  us 
more  comfortable  in  this  present  world. 

Peter  preached  this  kind  of  gospel  with  such  mov 
ing  eloquence  that  I  was  uneasy  sometimes  lest  the 
people  who  came  to  hear  him  might  forget  that  this 
was  not  a  rally  in  the  interest  of  higher  living  and 
more  giving,  and  that  they  would  break  out  in  open 
applause.  He  used  the  Lord's  mighty  Scriptures  in 
this  business  to  encourage  these  men  and  women  to 
keep  up  their  wartime  enthusiasm  until  everybody 
had  a  job,  every  child  an  education,  every  sick  man 
a  bed,  and  every  street  woman  a  comfortable  home — 
all  to  be  achieved  by  funds  and  good  conduct.  The 
thing  he  left  out  was,  "By  my  spirit,  thus  saith  the 
Lord." 

Peace,  dear  brethren,  does  not  bring  peace  after 
all.  It  is  only  the  statues  raised  to  commemorate 
victories  that  are  winged  and  beautiful.  Victory  her 
self  invariably  comes  home  to  us  with  a  tragic  face, 
disheveled,  maimed,  bearing  the  scars  of  many 


138  MY    SON 

wounds,  reduced  in  fortune,  anxious  for  the  future 
— and  all  of  us  face  to  face  once  more  with  the 
graver  faults  of  our  civilization. 

So  now,  in  this  winter  of  1918-19,  with  the  war 
ended  and  the  world  not  nearly  so  safe  as  we  had 
been  led  to  believe  it  would  be,  with  peace  stand 
ing  round  waiting  to  come  in  and  change  its  uniform 
to  civilian  clothes,  and  take  off  its  cork  leg  and  get 
a  good  rest,  every  man  got  busy  according  to  his  own 
spirit  and  according  to  his  notion  of  his  own 
particular  salvation.  Thus  we  were  torn  asunder  by 
the  awful  multiple  of  spirits,  and  we  were  led  not  at 
all  by  the  one  everlasting  Spirit. 

I  cannot  say  how  it  was  in  other  churches,  but 
Peter's  church  became  a  seething  caldron  of  every 
kind  of  unrest.  There  was  for  a  time  a  sort  of  human 
smoke  on  the  back  benches  after  the  workman  who 
had  been  employed  in  the  shipyards  came  home. 
These  men  had  been  members,  were  still,  but  in  spite 
of  Peter's  courageous  sermons  urging  them  to  take 
up  the  ways  of  peace  and  go  to  work  at  it  they  dis 
appeared  out  of  that  church  like  smoke  that  a  wind 
drives.  And  they  would  not  work,  not  for  the  wages 
peace  can  afford  to  pay.  They  would  have  ten  dol 
lars  a  day  for  three  dollars'  worth  of  labor  or  they 
would  not  labor. 

Then  the  soldiers  began  to  drift  in  from  overseas, 
scarred  young  veterans  with  considerable  indigna 
tion  in  their  hearts  about  the  way  free  men  had  been 


MY    SON  139 

made  to  obey  military  discipline  in  the  Army.  They 
did  not  mind  fighting  and  dying,  but  they  were  mad 
as  hornets,  to  a  man,  about  this  obedience  business. 
And  they  were  determined  to  take  a  furlough.  There 
was  a  committee  in  Peter's  church  to  provide  em 
ployment  for  these  dear  boys.  There  was  no  diffi 
culty  about  finding  jobs  for  them.  The  difficulty 
was  in  persuading  some  of  them  to  take  these  jobs. 
No,  thanks!  They  had  saved  the  country;  they 
would  whiff  round  and  enjoy  the  country  a  bit. 
Where  was  that  fatted  calf?  With  what  sardonic 
youthful  humor  they  must  have  read  every  morning 
in  the  papers  about  the  efforts  of  the  various  employ 
ment  agencies  and  committees  to  rustle  jobs  for 
them. 

Then  came  the  strikes — the  steel  strike  and  the 
coal  strike,  and  ten  thousand  local  strikes.  The  rail 
road  shopmen  and  the  street-car  men  and  the  ship 
ping  clerks,  all  struck  one  after  another  in  this  city. 
There  were  men  in  every  one  of  these  unions  who 
belonged  to  Peter's  church. 

Peter  bestirred  himself.  He  took  a  hand.  He  was 
all  things  to  all  men  in  this  crisis.  He  scarcely  took 
time  for  his  meals.  He  was  off  to  a  committee 
meeting,  or  he  had  to  see  a  man,  or  two  or  three 
men.  He  really  expected  to  exert  some  influence. 
But  strikers  do  not  like  preachers.  A  preacher  is 
one  of  the  misgivings  they  have  in  the  order  they 
have  set  up  for  themselves.  I  never  knew  but  one 


140  MY    SON 

preacher  who  was  popular  with  them,  and  he  was 
an  agitator  who  covered  his  malfeasance  with  Old 
Testament  derogatory  Scriptures.  He  preached  on 
the  rent  problem  and  the  high  cost  of  living.  His 
picture  appeared  in  the  newspapers  almost  as  regu 
larly  as  if  he  had  taken  a  patent  medicine  and  was 
now  a  part  of  the  advertisement  of  this  nostrum. 
There  is  a  queer  thing  about  some  small  dangerous 
men — they  are  made  manifest  not  by  their  own  works 
but  by  a  crowd  or  a  riot.  They  are  safe  only  be 
cause  of  this  vicious  protection.  This  man  was  like 
that. 

I  had  no  fear  that  Peter  would  go  so  far.  He 
was  for  harmony,  not  discord.  But  the  chairman 
of  his  board  of  stewards  was  that  old  valentine  of 
a  man  wrho  wore  a  sage-green  suit  and  controlled  the 
stock  in  the  street-railway  company.  This  fact  was 
enough  to  make  the  strikers  distrust  Peter.  Every 
time  he  urged  them  to  compromise  and  yield  a  point 
or  two,  they  regarded  him  as  the  emissary  of  that 
capitalist.  And  if  he  went  back  to  Cathcart,  this 
chairman  of  his  board  of  stewards  and  Peter's  pet 
capitalist,  Cathcart  would  give  him  to  understand 
genially  but  firmly  that  his  good  offices  were  not  ap 
preciated.  It  is  one  thing  to  tread  water  in  a  church 
row,  and  quite  another  thing  to  oil  them  between 
labor  and  capital.  Peter  could  manage  a  church 
choir  with  every  songster  in  it  tearing  the  other  fel 
low's  hair,  but  he  could  do  nothing  with  these  motor- 


MY    SON  141 

men,  nor  with  Cathcart.  Still,  he  kept  at  it  with 
Christian  perversity,  making  himself  such  a  nuisance 
that  I  was  anxious  lest  he  should  get  his  name  in  the 
papers  as  a  pernicious  peacemaker.  Peter  was  by 
his  table  as  the  Methodist  Church  is  by  its  altar  on 
communion  Sunday.  Any  man  may  take  the  sacra 
ment  there,  no  matter  to  what  denomination  he  be 
longs,  or  even  if  he  is  not  a  member  of  any  church, 
if  for  the  moment  he  thinks  he  is  in  love  and  charity 
with  his  neighbor.  So  Peter  would  invite  anybody, 
from  a  hungry  beggar  to  a  senator  dead  in  his  tres 
passes  and  sins,  to  dine  with  us.  During  this  season 
of  strikes  we  were  constantly  entertaining  belliger 
ent  motormen  and  mechanics. 

I  must  say  that  I  felt  drawn  to  these  men.  They 
were  more  familiar  to  me  than  most  of  the  people  in 
Peter's  church.  They  reminded  me  of  the  angry 
brethren  with  whom  William  used  to  deal  and  pray 
until  they  forgave  each  other.  Sometimes  I  tried  to 
join  in  the  discussion  between  Peter  and  one  of 
these  fierce  guests. 

Maybe  I  would  raise  my  hand  soothingly  and  say 
something  like  this:  "Did  you  say  you  are  earning 
a  dollar  an  hour,  Mr.  Hardit*?" 

Whereupon  Hardit,  who  was  a  shop  mechanic, 
would  give  me  a  three-dollar  nod  of  indignation. 

"Then  it  cannot  be  so  bad,"  I  would  return. 
"Now  my  husband  and  I  used  to  do  very  well 
on " 


142  MY    SON 

But  I  was  never  allowed  to  tell  how  little  William 
and  I  lived  on.  Our  guest  would  stand  on  his  hind 
legs  at  once  and  begin  to  count  off  the  children  he 
had,  and  what  he  paid  for  shoes  and  doctors'  bills, 
especially  what  the  dentist  cost.  All  his  children 
had  teeth,  he  had  teeth,  and  his  wife  had  a  plate  of 
false  teeth !  How  much  did  I  think  it  cost  to  main 
tain  the  teeth  in  a  family  of  six? 

I  was  always  a  trifle  flustered  by  this  question. 
My  plates  were  made  so  many  years  ago,  when  you 
could  get  a  good  double  set  of  them  for  twenty-five 
dollars.  And  it  has  been  so  long  since  real  teeth 
entered  into  the  problem  of  existence  with  me  that 
I  have  had  no  experience  with  modern  dentists.  But 
it  does  seem  strange  to  me  how  everybody  tears 
round  these  days  about  just  his  teeth.  The  human 
tooth  is  under  suspicion.  It  turns  out  to  be  the  root 
of  all  evil  in  the  body.  If  you  go  to  the  doctor  with 
a  pain  in  your  knee  he  sends  you  to  the  dentist,  who 
gags  you,  taps  your  teeth,  chooses  the  best  molar  you 
have  or  maybe  the  only  two  you  have  that  hit,  and 
yanks  them  out.  Therefore,  your  knee  will  be  well. 
This  does  not  follow.  I  am  as  innocent  of  teeth  as  a 
new  born  babe,  but  I  have  a  knee  that  still  aches  like 
a  tooth  in  bad  weather. 

I  always  felt  a  trifle  nervous  about  being  "raised 
a  spiritual  body"  in  the  next  world.  It  sounds  thin 
and  unsubstantial,  as  if  I  should  not  be  noticed  much 
or  have  other  spiritual  bodies  bow  pleasantly  to  me 


MY    SON  143 

as  I  passed,  because  they  might  not  see  me  pass 
ing.  But  there  is  one  advantage — we  shall  never 
have  to  call  the  doctor.  It  is  our  corruption  that 
makes  his  fortune.  I  do  not  say  there  will  be  no  doc 
tors  in  heaven,  but  all  the  signs  indicate  that  none 
of  them  will  be  doctors  after  they  get  there. 

One  evening  during  a  very  serious  strike  of 
the  railway  shop  mechanics  Peter  came  in  with 
another  guest,  whom  he  introduced  as  Mr.  Kleffler. 
The  moment  I  set  eyes  on  this  man  I  knew  that  he 
was  different.  He  might  be  a  heathen  or  a  poet, 
but  he  was  no  born-and-bred  American.  And  I  could 
see  that  he  was  not  one  of  Peter's  beloved  strikers. 
A  striker  has  hard  red  hands,  horned  knuckles,  stub 
bed  finger  nails,  muscles  that  crawl  under  his  sleeve 
when  he  makes  a  gesture  at  you;  and  he  never 
gestures  at  random,  his  arm  oratory  is  straight  from 
the  shoulder  and  in  your  direction.  Also,  he  has 
an  honest  bitter  brow,  coruscated  with  wrinkles  that 
you  can  read  and  know  they  mean  work,  exposure 
and  at  present  a  bad  temper. 

This  Kleffler  was  a  frail  man  who  had  evidently 
escaped  the  workingman's  hardships.  His  body  was 
thin.  His  dark  blue  suit  fitted  him  as  if  it  had  orig 
inally  fitted  a  larger  man  and  did  not  care  about 
being  on  this  one  at  all.  His  shirt  was  not  clean. 
His  collar  was  exhausted.  His  hair  was  long  and 
laid  back  from  his  brow  like  a  black  flourish.  His 
hands  were  very  white,  sickly  looking,  but  active. 


144  MY   SON 

They  flew  up  and  seemed  to  make  faces  at  you  when 
ever  he  said  anything.  I  did  not  like  his  hands, 
which  are  as  revealing  a  part  of  the  countenance  of 
a  man  as  his  nose  is.  And  I  did  not  like  his  eyes. 
There  was  a  bright  silence  in  them,  like  a  secret 
laugh  at  your  expense.  But  a  man  cannot  help  hav 
ing  what  looks  like  a  raveled  body  sometimes;  or  a 
head  that  is  two  numbers  too  large  for  it;  or  even  a 
malicious  eye,  if  he  inherits  it.  So  I  asked  him  to 
come  in  to  the  fire  and  get  warm.  I  said  the  weather 
was  very  cold.  He  said  yes,  it  was  cold,  and  sat 
down,  thrusting  first  one  foot,  then  the  other  toward 
the  blazing  grate. 

While  he  was  doing  this  he  swung  a  glance  round 
the  room.  It  was  the  impudent  look  of  a  bailiff  who 
estimates  the  value  of  your  things  because  he  will  be 
back  to-morrow  to  get  them. 

"They  make  you  very  comfortable,"  he  said. 

I  thought  this  was  a  queer  thing  to  say,  but  I 
answered  that  they  did,  that  this  was  the  best  parson 
age  we  ever  had,  and  I  was  about  to  go  on  to  tell 
him  about  the  parsonages  William  and  I  used  to  live 
in  when  Peter  interrupted  me.  He  wanted  to  know 
if  there  had  been  any  telephone  calls  for  him.  I  told 
him,  and  took  the  hint.  Peter  frequently  interrupts 
me  when  I  am  about  to  tell  something  that  I  ought 
not  tell  or  repeat  something  that  I  have  already  told 
several  times  before. 

So  I  sat  quietly  on  the  other  side  of  the  fireplace 


MY    SON  145 

with  my  skirts  smoothed  out  and  my  glasses  fixed 
politely  on  Kleffler  until  I  heard  Peter  calling  the 
numbers  I  had  given  him  on  the  phone.  Then  I 
asked  Kleffler  if  he  lived  in  the  city.  He  said  no, 
and  added  after  a  slight  hesitation  that  he  was  from 
Chicago — as  if  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  this  was 
the  place  he  chose  to  be  from,  though  I  did  not  in 
terpret  it  that  way  at  the  time.  I  asked  him  if  he 
was  married,  because  I  always  think  if  you  know 
whether  a  stranger  is  married  you  know  something 
about  him.  He  said  yes,  as  if  he  said  yes  he  was 
married  in  a  way. 

I  asked  him  if  he  had  any  children,  because  I  al 
ways  think  if  a  stranger  says  he  has  a  family  you 
know  something  good  about  him.  He  replied  that 
he  did  have  children.  I  remarked  encouragingly 
that  he  appeared  to  be  young,  hoping  he  would  tell 
me  how  many  children  he  had.  He  astonished  me. 
He  said  he  had  six.  And  he  could  not  have  been  a 
day  older  than  Peter,  who  was  thirty-three. 

Another  hour  passed  before  I  discovered  what  kind 
of  a  man  we  had  in  the  house,  but  I  may  as  well  call 
attention  to  this  curious  fecundity  of  radicals  here. 
Nearly  every  time  one  of  them  gets  the  much  de 
sired  publicity  of  appearing  before  an  investigating 
committee  he  proves  to  be  the  father  of  from  six  to 
nine  children,  all  born,  no  doubt,  with  red  topknots 
on  their  heads  and  with  no  chance  at  all  to  become 
honest  God-fearing  men  and  women.  If  there  is  any 


146  MY   SON 

way,  I  think  they  should  be  vaccinated  morally  and 
kept  out  of  the  Rand  School. 

I  was  considering  whether  I  should  ask  Kleffler 
what  church  he  attended,  which  is  a  delicate  way  of 
asking  a  stranger  if  he  believes  in  God  and  his  Savior, 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  when  I  heard  the  phone  click 
as  Peter  hung  up  the  receiver. 

"What  church  do  you  attend,  Mr.  Kleffler  ?"  I 
asked  hurriedly. 

I  had  just  time  to  catch  a  queer  sort  of  grin  on 
his  face  before  Peter  came  in  and  headed  me  off  with 
some  remark  to  him  about  the  postponement  of  a 
meeting,  where,  I  gathered  from  what  followed, 
Kleffler  was  to  have  made  an  address. 

"Now,"  Peter  said,  sitting  down  and  smiling 
amiably  at  him,  "we  shall  have  time  to  talk  it  over. 
You  can  do  all  the  good  in  the  world  here  if  you  will 
only  tell  the  men  the  right  thing." 

I  did  not  see  the  right  thing  in  Kleffler's  eye,  but  I 
caught  at  this  news  that  he  was  some  kind  of  speaker. 
I  wanted  to  know  what  kind. 

"Do  you  lecture1?"  I  asked  politely. 

"I  teach,"  he  answered  grimly. 

Then  Peter  shot  me  another  look  as  if  he  said 
"Mother!"  And  I  subsided  into  the  silence  which 
I  am  compelled  to  keep  always  in  the  same  chair 
with  me. 

When  you  are  old,  but  not  nearly  so  dead  as  your 
nearest  and  dearest  think  you  are,  and  the  world  is 


MY    SON  147 

y 

spinning  and  doing  things  it  never  did  before,  you 
do  crave  to  know  what  is  going  on ;  and  no  one  tells 
you,  because  what  is  the  use  of  upsetting  you  at 
your  age1?  I  reckon  this  is  why  elderly  people  ask 
so  many  questions.  It  is  the  only  way  we  can  find 
out  enough  to  live  and  think  on.  And  it  certainly 
is  the  quickest  way.  Many  a  time  if  Peter  left  me 
alone  in  the  room  with  some  one  I  should  know  more 
about  that  person  when  he  came  back  than  he  ever 
imagined  or  dreamed  was  so.  But  for  some  reason 
he  was  determined  to  keep  me  out  of  Kleffler's  confi 
dence.  I  was  the  more  curious  because  I  began  to 
see  that  he  did  not  himself  approve  of  this  man,  but 
that  he  was  preparing  to  take  him  dead  or  alive  in 
an  argument. 

Dinner  was  announced  at  this  moment.  And  it 
went  off  very  fast,  that  dinner.  I  could  not  tell 
whether  Peter  was  hurrying  to  remove  his  guest  to 
the  safer  territory  of  his  study,  or  if  it  was  because 
Kleffler  took  his  food  coming  and  going,  so  to  speak, 
and  we  were  obliged  to  keep  up  with  him.  But  it 
was  apparent  that  Peter  was  determined  he  should 
not  talk  about  whatever  it  was  that  Kleffler  wished 
to  discuss. 

By  this  time  I  was  vaguely  suspicious.  I  gave 
Kleffler  his  coffee  and  tried  to  forgive  him  for  keep 
ing  the  spoon  in  his  cup.  If  you  are  a  good  man  it 
is  no  sin  to  allow  your  spoon  to  stand  up  like  a  naked 
mast  in  your  coffee,  or  even  to  take  your  food  ob- 


148  MY    SON 

soletely  with  your  knife.  But  if  you  are  not  a  good 
man  everything  is  evidence  against  you.  I  was  dis 
covering  as  fast  as  I  could  that  I  did  not  like  this 
man.  The  spirit  in  me  was  beginning  to  rise.  Peter 
felt  it,  because  he  began  to  say  pleasant,  teasing 
things  to  me,  the  way  he  does  when  he  knows  I  am 
about  to  fire,  and  must  be  kept  soothed  with  the 
choicest  filial  compliments  if  my  aim  is  distracted. 

Kleffler  escaped  as  the  plates  were  being  changed 
for  dessert.  He  had  been  suppressed  as  long  as  he 
could  be.  He  had  ideals.  He  was  the  traveling 
salesman  of  these  ideals,  and  he  must  show  them. 
He  had  the  habit  of  eloquence.  He  said  several 
noble  things  that  made  my  flesh  creep.  He  told 
Peter  that  old  orders  were  passing  away.  The  peo 
ple  were  at  last  coming  to  understand  what  the 
brotherhood  of  man  meant.  Within  five  years  at 
the  longest  he  thought  the  struggle  would  be  ended. 

"Mankind  will  have  become  adjusted  to  mankind, 
not  to  illusions,  and  we  shall  hold  all  things  in 
common!"  he  exclaimed.  "Then,  my  dear  sir,"  he 
added,  looking  at  Peter,  "we  shall  have  no  more 
strikes.  There  will  be  no  longer  any  question  of 
wages,  because  there  will  be  no  capital  with  which 
to  pay  wages.  We  shall  not  need  it.  We  shall  have 
everything!" 

All  my  life  I  have  kept  the  back  of  my  hand, 
spiritually  speaking,  to  riches.  If  I  have  been  for 
anybody  it  is  the  poor;  if  I  am  against  anybody  it  is 

\ 


MY    SON  149 

the  rich.  But  what  this  man  had  just  said  sounded 
to  me  more  dangerous  than  blasphemy.  I  looked  at 
him.  He  returned  this  look  with  a  sort  of  forked- 
tongued  merriment  in  his  black  eyes.  He  widened 
his  grin  until  his  nose  seemed  to  flatten  like  the 
head  of  an  adder.  I  smelled  the  thoughts  of  vipers. 
Not  until  this  moment  did  I  recognize  him.  Peter, 
my  son  and  a  preacher,  had  brought  a  red  radical 
into  a  Methodist  parsonage ! 

Now  I  can  dine  with  anybody.  I  have  done  it, 
but  I  draw  the  line  at  unnatural  things.  And  this 
man  was  no  longer  a  man  to  me.  He  looked  too 
much  like  the  pale  devouring  worm  of  himself.  He 
stood  for  the  rape  of  Russia,  for  that  strange  un- 
cleanness  of  mind  and  soul  of  which  we  were  hear 
ing  so  much  by  this  time.  He  was  the  universal 
rogue,  he  had  a  predatory  instinct  toward  every  vir 
tue.  He  professed  peace  and  made  war  in  the  dark. 
He  was  the  black  death  of  civilization,  and  he  was 
sitting  at  my  table! 

I  laid  down  my  fork  and  folded  my  napkin,  then 
I  put  both  hands  against  the  edge  of  the  table  and 
drove  my  chair  back. 

"Peter!"  I  exclaimed. 

"Yes,  mother,"  he  answered,  very  much  embar 
rassed,  "will  you  excuse  us1?" 

"I  will.  I  was  about  to  ask  you  to  excuse  me,"  I 
answered  coldly. 

They  went  out.    Kleffler  was  laughing.    He  was 


150  MY    SON 

not  ashamed.  He  was  pleased  to  show  the  naked 
ness  of  his  reptilian  mind  to  an  old  woman.  Her 
horror  amused  him. 

I  have  never  acquired  the  habit  of  eavesdropping; 
but  I  have  heard  many  a  petition  through  a  keyhole 
that  William  thought  he  was  making  to  his  Lord  in 
secret,  because  I  wanted  to  know  what  was  the  mat 
ter  with  William  so  that  I  might  know  what  to  do 
for  him.  And  now  that  my  son  was  holding  con 
verse  with  the  adversary  I  wanted  to  know  what 
was  going  on. 

His  study  was  across  the  hall  from  the  parlor. 
The  door  was  open.  I  went  into  the  parlor  and 
opened  that  door,  not  wide,  but  enough  for  the 
human  voice  to  pass  through. 

They  were  discussing  the  strike.  Kleffler  claimed 
the  credit  of  having  fomented  it.  He  said  you  could 
make  men  do  anything  if  you  could  make  them  be 
lieve  something.  He  said  there  would  be  very  few 
strikes  merely  for  the  present  good  the  men  hoped 
to  get  out  of  them,  but  it  was  the  hope  they  had 
of  disrupting  the  whole  economic  system,  and  of 
one  day  controlling  trade,  markets,  transporta 
tion  and  all  public  utilities.  It  was  the  business 
of  him  and  of  others  like  him  to  confirm  them  in 
this  faith. 

"If  we  did  not  succeed  in  that,"  I  heard  him  say, 
"we  should  never  pull  off  but  one  strike  in  any  one 
industry,  because,  of  course,  you  know  a  strike  never 


MY   SON  151 

pays,  even  if  the  strikers  win.  It  costs  too  much. 
But  we  keep  up  this  missionary  work  among  the 
workers  everywhere,  and  we  can  always  go  back  and 
call  another  one." 

"Do  you  really  believe  this  doctrine  yourself?"  I 
heard  Peter  ask  him. 

"It  is  not  to  believe,  but  to  make  the  other  fel 
lows  believe  it,"  Kleffler  answered. 

"There  is  Russia "  in  Peter's  voice. 

"Not  a  fair  experiment.  As  soon  as  we  can  wear 
out  a  few  governments  like  this  one  and  England, 
break  down  capital,  we  can  put  it  over  like  a  shot !" 
the  other  laughed. 

"But  you  can  never  do  that,"  Peter  again. 

"We  are  doing  it.  The  honor  system  among  men 
is  weakening.  The  idea  is  to  destroy  the  morale, 
tear  things  up.  That  the  workingman  is  demanding 
shorter  and  shorter  hours  is  the  smallest  part  of  our 
plan.  We  are  teaching  him  to  be  destructive,  to 
harry  his  employer,  to  nibble  his  reputation,  destroy 
confidence  in  him.  It  is  a  sort  of  universal  sabotage 
at  which  we  aim.  Nothing  you  can  put  your  finger 
on,  but  a  crumbling  under  our  fingers  that  goes  on 
all  the  time." 

Peter  was  silent.  I  heard  the  other  man  get  up. 
I  knew  he  was  standing  before  the  fireplace  because 
I  could  hear  the  click  of  his  heels  against  the  tiles. 

"It  is  taking  hold,  this  idea  of  destruction.  It  ap 
peals  to  something  long  repressed  and  controlled  in 


152  MY    SON 

the  minds  of  men,"  he  went  on.  "The  clerks  in  the 
stores,  are  they  so  anxious  as  formerly  to  sell  their 
employers'  goods?  They  are  not.  But  he  pays  them 
more.  You  employ  a  man.  Does  he  earn  his  wage  ? 
Certainly  not.  But  you  must  pay  it.  You  have  a 
big  factory  with  half  a  million  dollars'  worth  of 
machinery  in  it.  If  our  men  keep  some  part  of  it  out 
of  order  can  you  fill  your  contracts'?  You  have  a 
farm.  But  have  we  not  raised  the  standard  of 
wages  until  you  must  pay  twice  as  much  for  half  a 
man?  There  will  be  no  whole  workingman  left;  we 
are  dividing  them.  Well,  what  is  happening"?  As 
we  progress  in  efficiency  of  propaganda  this  wast 
age  will  increase  in  volume. 

"You  do  not  realize  it  yet,  but  we  have  the  ad 
vantage  of  you  so  long  as  you  have  anything  that 
can  be  wasted  or  destroyed.  When  you  have  not  you 
will  join  our  ranks.  You  must.  That  is  what  we 
count  on.  Our  object  is  to  destroy  confidence,  your 
confidence  in  the  man  who  works  for  you,  his  con 
fidence  in  you.  Thus  we  will  destroy  credit,  and 
without  credit  or  confidence  how  will  you  do  busi 
ness?  How  long  will  property  last?  Or  your  Gov 
ernment,  or  your  boasted  religion,  which  is  the  frail 
est  illusion  of  all?" 

"No!"  I  heard  Peter  exclaim.  "That  cannot 
happen.  Even  admitting  your  infamous  plan  works, 
which  I  do  not  for  a  moment  concede,  so  much  mis 
fortune  will  drive  men  the  more  earnestly  to  seek 


MY   SON  153 

that  which  always  remains,  the  consolation  of  re 
ligion." 

"You  think  so,"  Kleffler  retorted,  "but  you  think 
so  in  the  face  of  facts.  The  churches  are  not  win 
ning,  they  are  losing;  they  will  lose  half  a  million 
members  this  year.  You  see  we — we  are  offering 
mankind  a  salvation  he  can  see  with  his  eyes,  taste 
with  his  lips,  feel  on  his  back!" 

"I  don't  understand  that  you  are,"  Peter  answered. 

"Yes,  all  that  he  can  take,"  the  other  said. 

"But  not  earn,"  Peter  put  in. 

"That  is  your  word,  not  mine,"  the  other  laughed. 

"What  will  become  of  the  weak1?" 

"What  does  become  of  them  in  Nature?  They 
die  and  fertilize  the  strong.  Your  foolish  senti 
mentalities,  your  pious  charities,  your  laws  growing 
out  of  these  sickly  emotions  have  filled  the  world 
with  weak  people,  incompetents,  a  frightful  and 
senseless  burden!  Well,  they  will  pass.  When  we 
are  done  only  the  terribly  competent  and  strong  will 
survive." 

Peter  said  something  that  I  did  not  catch,  about 
honor  and  mercy. 

"Terms  used  to  conjure  with,"  Kleffler  answered. 
"We  shall  leave  them  out  of  our  minds.  It  is  all 
about  you,  this  new  order,  forming,  drawing  out, 
clearing  the  way;  and  you  do  not  see  it.  Even  the 
children  have  it.  The  other  day  five  hundred  school 
children  struck  in  one  of  your  cities.  Did  you  notice 


154  MY    SON 

that?  We  have  our  word  everywhere.  The  easiest 
people  to  teach  are  those  who  do  not  know  that 
they  are  being  taught.  What  you  call  your  ig 
norant  classes.  They  are  becoming  learned,"  he 
laughed. 

I  have  read  Job,  but  never  before  have  I  heard 
Satan  in  the  flesh  speaking. 

What  Peter  answered  him  in  reply  I  do  not  set 
down.  It  was  the  argument  of  an  honest  man  who 
believed  in  law  and  religion.  But  it  is  useless  to 
offer  righteousness  to  the  devil.  There  is  no  com 
mon  ground  upon  which  you  can  meet  him.  He  is 
unspeakable  and  unthinkable. 

Finally  I  heard  Peter  talking,  very  low.  He  went 
on  for  a  long  time.  I  could  not  hear  what  he  said, 
only  a  short  laugh  from  Kleffler  now  and  then.  But 
I  could  tell  that  Peter  was  using  a  good  man's  cuss 
ing  voice.  They  have  it,  every  one  of  them,  a  curious 
authority  for  telling  a  man  that  he  must  and  shall 
be  damned.  I  reckon  Peter  was  saying  something 
along  that  line,  because  presently  Kleffler  came  walk 
ing  with  a  jerky  step  toward  the  door. 

"All  right,  I'll  go,"  he  said,  snickering,  "but  I'll 
be  in  your  church  to  change  it,  in  your  house  to 
break  it,  in  your  pockets  to  empty  them,  and  in  your 
Government  to  destroy  it.  You  cannot  get  rid  of  me 
by  turning  me  out  of  your  door.  I  am  everywhere." 

Then  I  heard  him  slam  it  and  run  down  the  steps 
into  the  street. 


MY    SON  155 

I  went  to  close  the  parlor  door,  passing  a  window 
that  overlooked  this  street.  I  saw  two  men  move 
from  behind  the  wall  of  the  next  house  and  join  this 
man.  They  seemed  to  be  very  intimate  and  went 
away  arm  and  arm  with  him. 

After  closing  the  door  very  softly  I  came  back, 
sat  down  in  my  corner  beside  the  fire  and  waited  for 
my  son.  I  was  crocheting  a  mat  for  the  center  table. 
This  was  to  be  a  mark  I  would  leave  of  myself  in 
this  parsonage — that  did  not  have  a  single  hand 
made  thing  in  it. 

Presently  Peter  came  in.  He  looked  years  older. 
His  face  was  pale  and  drawn  like  a  man  who  has 
seen  a  terrible  vision.  He  dropped  into  the  chair 
on  the  other  side  of  the  fire  and  stared  at  the  coals. 

I  went  on  crocheting,  pretending  not  to  notice  the 
change  in  him,  feeling  that  the  sight  of  me  there, 
serene  and  undisturbed,  about  to  go  to  my  prayers 
and  bedtime  peace,  was  the  best  thing  I  could  do  for 
him. 

"Mother,"  he  said  after  a  while,  without  looking 
up,  "evil  forces  are  at  work  everywhere." 

"They  always  have  been,  my  son,"  I  answered 
quietly. 

"But  not  with  brains.  They  were  blind  forces, 
instincts,  appetites.  Now  it  is  different.  Evil  has 
become  a  science." 

"I  never  respected  the  sciences  as  you  do,  Peter," 
I  replied.  "There  is  just  one  knowledge  that  counts, 


156  MY   SON 

the  knowing  of  his  will.  There  is  one  duty,  the 
doing  of  his  will." 

"It  sounds  simple,  but  it  is  not  simple,"  he  re 
turned. 

"If  this  world  could  have  been  damned  the  devil 
would  have  accomplished  that  long  ago.  He  cannot 
do  it,  my  son." 

Peter  was  silent.  I  do  not  think  he  heard  what 
I  said.  It  filled  his  ears  like  an  old  song  which  you 
do  not  really  hear.  But  I  know  this  was  a  good  thing 
because  I  had  it  from  William,  who  was  always  pull 
ing  Satan's  tail  and  injuring  his  reputation  when  he 
had  the  chance. 

Then,  looking  over  my  glasses  at  Peter,  who  had 
his  face  in  his  hands  like  a  defeated  mourner,  I 
uttered  a  blasphemy  against  man,  which  is  per 
missible  in  extreme  cases.  It  was  my  own,  not  Wil 
liam's. 

"Peter,"  I  said,  "do  you  know  what  I  think  the 
devil  really  is*?" 

"What?'  he  asked. 

"Only  a  temporary  weakness  in  man,  or  mankind. 
Nothing  permanent.  A  streak  of  ordinary  human 
heinousne'ss  from  which  we  suffer  now  and  then  like 
any  other  sickness." 

Peter  sat  up  and  regarded  me  as  if  he  saw  his  old 
orthodox  mother  coming  down  the  road  with  a  grass- 
green  heresy  on  her  head.  There  was  a  whoop  of 
astonishment  in  his  eye. 


MY    SON  157 

"I  have  always  thought  Satan  was  a  figure  of 
speech  in  the  Bible,"  I  began  again,  "a  sort  of  para 
ble  meant  to  convey  the  truth,  like  that  tale  of  the 
whale  that  swallowed  Jonah.  I  am  not  saying  that 
a  fish  could  not  swallow  a  missionary,  you  under 
stand;  but  I  do  say  that  Jonah  was  in  no  condition 
to  preach  that  same  day.  He  would  have  been 
obliged  to  lie  round  and  get  his  breath  and  clean 
up  a  bit." 

I  did  not  look  at  Peter,  but  I  could  hear  his  chair 
creaking  as  if  he  were  stirring  about  and  bracing 
his  back  for  a  jolt. 

"If  Satan  had  been  a  separate  and  distinct  entity 
he  would  not  have  been  at  all.  The  Lord  would 
have  seen  to  that  in  the  beginning.  But  when 
he  created  man  and  endowed  him  with  considerable 
powers  and  gave  him  dominion  over  all  things,  it 
turned  out  that  the  devil  was  the  intimate  personal 
creation  of  Adam  himself.  No  way  to  get  rid  of 
him  without  destroying  man.  We  do  it  ourselves, 
by  faith  in  God,"  I  concluded,  feeling  that  I  had 
held  my  note  too  long. 

"If  you  will  notice  the  works  of  the  devil  they  are 
always  performed  by  men.  If  you  notice  the  works 
of  God  you  know  that  no  man  or  devil  could  have 
done  them.  They  are  too  altogether  and  perfectly 
good  and  everlasting.  They  work,  Peter !  The  ma 
chinery  never  gets  out  of  order;  his  systems  and 
seasons  go  on.  The  grass  always  springs.  The  rain 


158  MY   SON 

always  falls  with  justice.  The  sun  shines,  and  we 
always  get  a  night  at  the  end  of  each  day  in  which 
to  trust  him  more  fully  than  we  can  in  the  light, 
and  so  that  we  can  rest,  blessed  and  folded  away  in 
his  starlit  care !" 

"Mother!   That  is  just  poetry!"   Peter  answered. 

"It  is  the  truth,"  I  retorted;  "but  does  anything 
wrong  we  do,  last*?  It  does  not.  It  will  not  work, 
Peter.  Every  force  in  us  is  against  it,  as  life  is 
opposed  to  death.  To  live  we  must  destroy  that 
which  is  evil  that  we  do;  that  is  what  the  gospel  is 
for,  to  teach  us  how!" 

"We  are  a  long  time  learning,"  he  said  after  a 
pause. 

"We  have  so  much  to  learn,"  I  retorted,  looking 
across  and  fixing  my  eyes  upon  him,  over  the  tops 
of  my  glasses.  "For  example,  you  should  know  bet 
ter  than  to  bring  a  man  into  your  house  who  rejoices 
in  his  own  demoniacal  possession." 

"That  was  a  mistake,  having  the  fellow  here,"  he 
admitted;  "but  I  hoped  to — well,  convince  him  that 
he  was  wrong.  I  wanted  to  help  settle  this  strike, 
keep  the  church's  influence  to  the  front  in  this  time 
of  stress,"  he  explained. 

"You  cannot  exorcise  the  devil  in  a  man  who 
has  chosen  evil  to  be  his  god,"  I  told  him. 

"You  heard  what  he  said  to  me*?"  he  asked. 

"I  saw  him.  That  was  enough.  He  is  a  crim 
inal,"  I  answered,  not  willing  to  admit  that  the 


MY   SON  159 

parlor  door  had  been  ajar   when   he   knew   that  I 
always  kept  it  closed. 

I  usually  look  at  the  paper  before  Peter  comes 
down  in  the  morning  so  as  to  be  able  to  discuss  the 
news  while  he  is  reading  it  later  at  the  breakfast 
table.  This  may  interrupt  him  but  it  keeps  me  from 
sitting  too  dumb  and  effaced  at  my  end  of  the  table. 
The  next  morning  after  Kleffler's  visit  I  laid  it  with 
the  other  mail  beside  his  plate,' and  when  he  came  in 
to  breakfast  I  did  not  annoy  him  as  I  sometimes  do 
by  telling  him  the  news  before  he  can  see  it  for  him 
self.  I  merely  said,  "Good  morning,  Peter,"  in  that 
tone  of  virtue  women  use  when  they  have  a  head 
ache  or  a  grief. 

Peter  spread  his  paper  over  his  plate  when  he 
opened  it,  as  he  usually  does  while  he  waits  for  his 
toast  and  coffee.  Then  he  snatched  it  up  and  made 
a  sort  of  Adam  curtain  of  it  before  his  face.  I  could 
see  only  the  top  of  his  head  growing  pink  where  his 
hair  is  thin.  The  headline  on  the  front  page  that 
held  his  eye  announced  an  arrest  by  Federal  agents 
the  night  before.  The  interview  with  one  of  these 
agents  which  followed  gave  a  fairly  complete  ac 
count  of  Kleffler's  operations.  He  was  known  only 
as  a  labor  agitator  until  recently,  when  he  had  been 
identified  as  the  man  wanted  for  complicity  in  a 
number  of  bomb  outrages. 

The  last  paragraph  stated  in  a  small  cool  voice 


160  MY   SON 

that  Kleffler  had  been  arrested  as  he  was  leaving 
the  residence  of  a  "prominent  minister,  where  he  had 
dined." 

I  knew  when  Peter  finished  reading  that  last 
damning  sentence,  for  he  looked  over  the  top  of  it 
at  me. 

The  most  regretfully  prideful  moments  in  a 
woman's  life  are  those  when  she  knows  she  has  better 
judgment  and  more  sense  than  the  reigning  man  in 
her  family.  I  experienced  the  pangs  of  this  dolor 
ous  superiority  now. 

"It  is  mete  and  proper  to  associate  with  sinners 
and  even  Republicans,  Peter — many  of  them  are 
worthy  people — but  it  does  not  say  anywhere  in  the 
Bible  that  a  preacher  ought  to  break  bread  with  a 
radical,"  I  said  in  my  headaching  voice. 

He  made  no  reply.  He  slurred  his  breakfast  and 
immediately  retired  to  his  study,  where  he  remained 
all  c?.y,  which  was  Saturday.  There  was  only  one 
thing  he  could  do,  and  he  did  it.  The  next  morn 
ing  he  preached  a  powerful  sermon  against  commun 
ists,  anarchists  and  socialists.  He  was  very  severe. 
He  cleared  his  skirts  in  this  discourse  of  any  stain 
that  might  have  been  left  on  them  by  his  recent 
guest.  On  Monday  morning  excerpts  from  this  ser 
mon  appeared  prominently  in  the  same  papers  that 
carried  the  news  of  Kleffler's  arrest  as  "he  was  leav 
ing  the  residence  of  a  prominent  minister." 

The  strikers  went  back  to  work  on  this  same  day. 


MY   SON  161 

I  thought  the  arrest  of  Kleffler  had  much  to  do  with 
the  end  of  the  strike,  but  many  people  in  Peter's 
church  insisted  that  the  startling  exposures  he 
had  made  of  what  radicalism  really  meant  in  his 
Sunday  morning  sermon  had  its  weight  with  the 
strikers. 

My  son  is  a  very  smart  man.  He  can  turn  a  sharp 
corner  with  astonishing  speed  and  arrive  in  the 
straight  and  narrow  way  where  everybody  can  see 
him  before  anyone  can  form  an  adverse  judgment 
about  what  he  was  doing  round  that  corner.  I  will 
not  go  so  far  as  to  say  this  kind  of  moral  agility  in 
a  preacher  is  wrong,  but  I  do  think  Peter  would 
not  have  been  obliged  so  frequently  to  finance  his 
harmlessness  of  a  dove  with  so  much  serpent  wisdom 
if  he  had  had  at  this  time  a  clearer  vision  of  his 
offices  as  a  minister  of  the  gospel. 

During  the  early  spring  of  this  year  1919,  the 
earth  that  the  Lord  has  made  was  in  its  usual  health. 
All  the  seed  sown  came  up  for  harvest.  Not  a 
single  thing  was  changed  in  this  silent  order  of 
Nature,  established  in  the  beginning.  But  there  were 
unimaginable  disturbances  in  the  other  order,  that 
we  make  and  unmake  for  ourselves.  The  world,  for 
which  so  many  young  men  had  just  fought  and  died, 
seemed  to  be  slipping.  It  rocked  and  swayed  like  a 
little  foolish  thing  in  the  wind  of  many  minds.  In 
vain  did  the  echo  of  our  own  mighty  idealism  re- 


162  MY    SON 

verberate  across  the  seas.  We  paid  no  attention — 
that  is,  not  any  high  and  noble  attention.  We  were 
still  examining  our  "long  loose  leg,"  counting  the 
jerks  it  had  suffered,  and  wondering  why  we  had 
offered  it  so  carelessly.  We  would  not  join  the 
League  of  Nations  to  enforce  peace,  though  we  were 
pledged  to  it  and  ought  to  do  it,  because  after  the 
experience  we  had  over  there  it  looked  too  much  like 
another  way  of  offering  this  member  to  be  pulled  in 
definitely.  We  felt  twitchings  and  pains  as  strong 
as  bitter  memories  in  our  financial  muscles.  We 
turned  round  as  a  nation  and  regarded  that  great 
idealist  and  evangelist,  Mr.  Woodrow  Wilson,  whom 
we  had  come  near  to  worshiping  for  the  duration  of 
the  war,  with  considerable  curiosity,  which  was  not 
worshipful,  nor  altogether  friendly.  He  was  still 
in  Paris  at  this  time,  but  our  leg  was  paining  us 
even  before  he  went  over  there.  And  now  it  was 
giving  us  fits. 

Sometimes  I  have  my  doubts  about  risking  a  man 
in  his  spirit  to  determine  the  policies  of  a  great  na 
tion.  He  may  not  be  entirely  in  his  senses.  It  de 
pends  upon  how  you  interpret  and  apply  the  truth 
to  practical  affairs  whether  it  turns  out  to  be  not  the 
truth  at  all  but  a  dangerous  doctrine.  This  is  why 
your  Simon-pure  idealist  is  dangerous  if  you  take 
him  out  of  his  attic  and  away  from  his  books.  He 
has  a  streak  of  red  in  him  that  shows  up  when  he 
gets  hold  of  your  Government,  your  Army  and  your 


MY    SON  163 

treasury.  He  means  well,  but  what  he  means  does 
not  turn  out  well.  He  skips  the  unalterable  fact  of 
human  nature — namely,  that  you  cannot  take  what 
belongs  to  one  man  or  one  nation  and  give  it,  how 
ever  gloriously,  free,  gratis  and  for  nothing,  to 
another  man  or  another  nation  without  rousing  the 
very  honest  devil  of  possession  that  is  in  us  all. 
Enough  of  a  thing  is  enough,  and  that  is  what  no 
idealist  ever  finds  out. 

But  this  stir  in  Washington  was  not  the  worst  of 
it.  The  cost  of  everything  went  up  as  it  did  not  go 
up  during  the  war.  We  had  one  sort  of  famine  after 
another.  If  it  was  not  gas  it  was  sugar,  and  for  the 
first  time  in  my  life  I  paid  twelve  dollars  for  a  pair 
of  shoes,  not  nearly  so  good  as  I  used  to  get  for 
three  dollars.  We  paid  fifty  cents  a  pound  for  steak. 

I  never  realized  how  futile  human  statutes  were 
until  men  gathered  in  councils,  legislatures,  Con 
gress — everywhere,  to  pass  laws  to  correct  this  abuse 
or  that  abuse.  Nothing  was  mended. 

The  general  opinion  was  that  these  disordered  con 
ditions  were  due  to  the  war.  No  doubt  they  were; 
but  what  I  want  to  know  is,  why  a  merchant  who 
showed  up  as  a  working  patriot  with  his  arm  round 
every  farmer's  neck  persuading  him  to  buy  bonds 
with  his  cotton  money  when  he  had  never  had  any 
money  before,  sold  this  same  farmer  a  suit  of  clothes 
for  fifty  dollars  that  cost  him  only  ten  dollars'? 
Patriotism  is  far  more  emotional  than  religion  and 


164  MY    SON 

not  nearly  so  lasting  in  its  effects  on  character.  I 
could  look  over  Peter's  congregation  every  Sunday 
and  see  many  back-slidden  patriots  in  it,  men  who 
gave  their  time  and  their  eloquence  to  war  work; 
now  they  seemed  strangely  shrunken  and  ignoble. 
There  were  no  worse  profiteers  among  us.  It  was  the 
same  everywhere. 

In  the  summer  of  this  year,  with  everything  going 
wrong  and  the  few  anxious  pop-eyed  dollars  thrifty 
people  had  saved  to  get  them  through  the  bad 
weather  of  life  being  spent  for  the  bare  necessities, 
the  high  cost  of  the  heathen  struck  us.  We  had  spent 
billions  of  dollars  for  war  bonds,  we  had  given  mil 
lions  more  to  finance  every  kind  of  war  service. 
Now  the  Christian  churches  took  a  hand.  Each 
denomination  in  quick  succession  put  over  a  drive 
for  funds. 

We  had  to  fight  the  war  and  we  had  to  have  the 
money  to  pay  the  costs,  and  for  the  waste  and  senti 
mentalities  of  war.  But  what  will  happen  to  us  if 
too  many  other  interests  adopt  Mr.  McAdoo's 
methods'?  The  plan  for  raising  the  centenary  fund 
in  our  church  was  patterned  after  them.  In  a 
few  weeks  our  Methodist  churches  raised  seventy- 
five  million  dollars  without  leaving  even  a  souvenir 
bond  behind  to  show  for  what  we  had  given.  And 
we  put  it  all  over  Mr.  McAdoo  when  it  came  to  the 
cost  of  the  campaign,  which  was  only  one  and  a  half 
per  cent  of  the  amount  raised ! 


MY    SON  165 

Peter's  church  during  this  period  looked  like  a 
motion-picture  palace.  There  were  billboards  on  the 
street  outside  covered  with  highly  colored  posters. 
The  subjects  of  these  pictures  varied  from  several 
different  scenes  from  the  life  of  Jesus,  including  the 
crucifixion,  to  others  of  heathen  and  savages  to  be 
saved — presumably  by  this  fund.  But  there  was  not 
a  single  one  portraying  a  profiteering  capitalist  or  a 
labor  agitator  or  a  common  backslider,  which  in  my 
opinion  was  about  half  doing  this  poster  business. 
My  feeling  is  that  a  Christian  church  ought  not  to 
have  backbitten  the  heathen  by  exposing  them  to 
such  a  disadvantage  in  these  pictures  if  we  did  not 
have  the  courage  to  show  up  our  own  sinners  in 
the  same  high  colors. 

I  try  to  be  a  reasonbly  good  woman.  When  I  can 
not  live  in  charity  with  my  neighbor  I  resort  to  liv 
ing  in  silence  with  him.  But  there  is  a  sort  of  spite 
in  the  best  of  us  that  never  dies.  It  only  dies  down 
until  something  happens  to  stir  it  up  again.  Sitting 
in  Peter's  church  on  Sunday  with  these  posters  in 
side  and  outside  of  it,  I  recalled  the  embarrassment 
the  guests  used  to  show  at  tea  parties  when  I  first 
came  to  this  city,  and  so  far  forgot  proprieties  as  to 
mention  the  Lord  and  his  mercies.  I  decided  in  the 
light  of  these  posters  that  whatever  the  reason  for 
this  embarrassment  it  was  neither  reverence  nor 
spiritual  modesty. 

I  will  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  this  financial 


166  MY    SON 

activity  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  was  wrong.  By 
this  time  I  was  so  befuddled  that  I  could  not  tell  my 
moral  right  hand  from  my  spiritual  left  hand.  But  it 
does  something  to  people,  even  Christian  people,  to 
handle,  have  and  hold  large  sums  of  money.  One  of 
the  oft-repeated  promises  made  during  this  drive  for 
our  centenary  fund  was  that  no  preacher  should  re 
ceive  a  salary  of  less  than  one  thousand  dollars  a 
year.  This  was  a  popular  appeal  in  a  section  where 
many  of  them  even  in  these  hard  times  were  living 
on  six  hundred  and  their  sublime  faith  in  God.  We 
understood  that  these  men's  salaries  would  be  sup 
plemented  from  the  centenary  fund.  What  hap 
pened  was  that  certain  churches,  already  heavily 
burdened  with  the  obligation  they  had  taken  to  pay 
so  much  each  year  for  five  years  to  this  fund,  were 
notified  that  they  must  raise  their  pastors'  salaries 
to  at  least  a  thousand  dollars!  They  did,  out  of 
the  pockets  of  their  members,  not  the  centenary 
fund. 

Peter's  church  was  among  the  many  that  over 
subscribed  the  assessment  levied  on  it  for  this  fund. 
Preachers  are  the  best  agents  in  the  world  for  col 
lecting  money.  I  have  no  doubt  that  if  this  Govern 
ment  had  turned  over  the  whole  business  to  them  of 
getting  finances  for  the  war — with  Mr.  McAdoo,  of 
course,  to  advise  them — they  would  have  done  it 
without  the  artifice  of  selling  bonds,  and  so  the 
country  would  have  been  saved  the  enormous  taxes 


MY    SON  167 

we  must  pay  for  a  lifetime,  because  in  that  case 
there  would  have  been  no  excuse  for  imposing  these 
taxes. 

There  was  now  very  little  Ph.  D.  stuff  left  in 
Peter,  and  no  poetic  mysticism  at  all.  He  had 
passed,  still  like  the  shooting  star  of  himself,  out  of 
the  women's  clubs,  and  the  seat  of  his  popularity 
had  been  transferred  to  the  firmer  sex,  which,  you 
will  observe,  is  never  the  case  with  a  man  whose 
personality  makes  him  the  hero  orator  of  strictly 
feminine  organizations. 

Peter  made  a  rise.  He  was  made  a  member  of  the 
Add  and  Carry  Club.  The  membership  was  com 
posed  of  prominent  business  and  professional  men, 
and  it  was  nearly  as  large  as  that  of  Peter's  church. 
This  club  could  do  anything  from  promoting  the 
best  interests  of  the  city  to  entertaining  the  manager 
of  a  vaudeville  circuit  with  a  complement  of  his  lady 
stars. 

I  was  opposed  to  his  joining  it,  but  he  reminded 
me  that  other  leading  ministers  belonged  to  it.  He 
still  insisted  that  to  serve  you  must  get  down  among 
men,  when  the  gospel  plan  is  that  preachers  ought 
to  stay  up  among  men.  I  thought  my  son  could  be 
the  patient  long-suffering  brother  of  his  fellow  man 
without  becoming  his  buddy.  Maybe  this  was 
spiritual  pride,  but  when  his  own  stewards  who  were 
in  the  thing  began  to  call  him  "Pete,"  when  they 
motored  by  to  get  him  for  a  game  of  golf,  I  felt 


168  MY   SON 

queer.  I  wondered  if  they  still  thought  of  him  as 
"Pete"  on  Sunday,  when  he  preached  and  prayed 
and  pronounced  the  benediction.  Familiarity  does 
beget  contempt,  and  contempt  is  very  bad  for  a 
preacher. 

One  evening  the  phone  rang.  I  answered  it.  A 
woman's  voice  inquired  if  this  was  the  residence  of 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Peter  Thompson.  I  said  it  was.  Was 
he  at  home"?  I  said  yes.  She  wanted  to  speak  to 
him,  please.  I  called  Peter.  Like  most  public  men 
he  was  always  suspicious  of  the  phone.  He  asked 
me  to  find  out  who  this  was.  I  went  back  and  asked 
that  question.  She  said:  "Never  mind;  I  am  sure 
Mr.  Thompson  will  be  glad  to  speak  to  me." 

I  told  Peter  what  she  said,  and  he  came  grumbling 
to  the  phone.  I  stood  back,  you  may  say  maternally 
anxious,  waiting  to  hear  who  this  was,  having  a 
vague  recollection  of  this  mewing  voice,  but  not  able 
to  place  it. 

Peter  took  the  receiver  and  said:  "Well,  this  is 
Mr.  Thompson." 

Then  I  saw  him  rake  his  hand  through  his  hair, 
clamp  the  receiver  tightly  to  his  ear  as  if  he  feared 
it  might  leak  a  word,  and  look  over  his  shoulder 
at  me. 

"That's  all  right,  mother,"  he  said. 

I  took  the  hint  and  went  back  to  the  parlor,  but 
I  left  my  mind  out  there  in  the  hall  eavesdropping 
Peter.  This  can  be  done.  You  have  only  to  know 


MY    SON  169 

a  little  in  order  to  infer  the  rest  of  what  may  be 
going  on  behind  your  presence.  I  reflected  that  if 
this  was  Mrs.  Smith,  wanting  to  consult  Peter  about 
something,  he  would  have  said,  "How  do  you  do, 
Mrs.  Smith*?"  and  so  on.  And  at  the  same  time  he 
would  have  frowned  confidentially  to  me  because 
this  woman  was  one  of  those  church  pests  who  in 
sisted  upon  consulting  her  pastor  at  every  turn  of 
her  Christian  conscience.  And  if  this  was  one  of  his 
deaconesses  asking  instructions  he  would  have  given 
them  in  his  business  tone  of  voice.  But  his  manner 
and  voice  were  not  those  of  a  pastor  talking  to  one 
of  the  Dorcases  of  his  flock.  This  was  the  man  of 
him  obviously  speaking  to  the  woman  of  somebody 
else  at  the  other  end  of  the  phone. 

Presently  he  came  to  the  door  with  his  hat  in  his 
hand  and  said  he  was  going  out  for  a  while  and  that 
I  need  not  wait  up  for  him. 

I  noticed  this  unusual  consideration  because  it  was 
not  my  custom  to  stay  up  when  Peter  was  out  in 
the  evenings.  I  had  not  done  such  a  thing  on  pur 
pose  since  he  was  a  boy.  But  when  a  sensible  good 
man  in  his  thirties  suddenly  shows  signs  of  furtive 
adolescence  it  is  time  to  take  notice  and  act  accord 
ingly.  I  was  determined  to  keep  my  light  burning 
until  Peter  returned  that  night.  I  did  not  doubt  my 
son,  but  I  doubted  that  woman  whose  voice  I  had 
heard  over  the  phone.  I  make  no  excuses  for  my 
anxiety.  Every  good  woman  knows  that  she  must 


170  MY    SON 

develop  enough  evil-minded  ability  to  suspect  some 
of  the  worst  in  her  own  sex  if  she  protects  the  men 
in  her  family.  Even  then  she  may  be  obliged  to  do 
violence  to  her  candid  Christian  virtues  and  resort 
to  spite  if  she  does  her  duty. 


CHAPTER  V 

WHEN  Peter  went  out  in  the  evening  to  meet  some 
engagement  he  always  came  in  for  a  little  bedtime 
talk  if  I  had  not  retired  to  my  room.  Or  he  would 
sit  in  that  comfortable  silence  your  elder  children 
have  after  they  have  outgrown  the  wing  feathers  of 
your  nearer  love  and  care.  So  on  the  night  when 
he  had  gone  to  pay  that  mysterious  call  I  made  a  sort 
of  maternal  illumination  of  my  waiting  wakefulness 
by  turning  on  all  the  lights  in  the  parlor.  But  when 
he  came  in  at  eleven  o'clock  he  paused  at  the  open 
door  only  long  enough  to  say,  "Still  up,  mother1?" 
and  went  directly  to  his  room. 

It  is  only  when  a  wife  or  a  maid  desires  to  be 
deceived  by  a  lover  that  any  man  can  deceive  a 
woman  at  all.  They  are  singularly  apparent  to  the 
searching  feminine  eye.  If  one  of  them  knows  he  is 
doing  what  his  legal  womankind  believes  is  right 
and  proper  he  is  the  most  candid  of  all  creatures, 
but  lacking  that  approval  he  becomes  the  most  eva 
sive  and  secret.  It  is  the  one  universal  form  of 
masculine  cowardice,  which  goes  under  the  profes 
sion  every  man  makes  to  himself  of  not  wishing  to 
disturb  you  about  what  is  not  your  business  but  his 

171 


172  MY   SON 

own  private  personal  business.  This  is  why  anxious 
elderly  mothers  are  frequently  obliged  for  conscience' 
sake  to  watch  and  meddle  with  the  inalienable  rights 
of  their  bachelor  sons.  And  as  I  have  said  many 
times  before,  you  cannot  be  too  particular  if  your 
son  is  also  a  preacher. 

Peter  had  passed  the  youthful  period  of  celibacy 
when  a  young  man  instinctively  guards  his  liberty 
and  rarely  marries  without  being  overhauled  by  the 
strength  of  his  emotions,  and  he  had  reached  the 
stage  when  a  bachelor  sometimes  faces  about  and 
makes  up  his  mind  deliberately  to  take  a  wife.  I 
thought  something  like  that  was  going  on.  And  I 
feared  even  more  that  some  lady-doll  saint  in  Peter's 
church  might  be  arranging  for  an  innocent  flirtation 
with  her  pastor.  I  hoped  the  Lord  would  lead  me  in 
the  matter,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  to  be  led  on  the 
slightest  provocation. 

It  is  the  little  things  out  of  which  jokes  on  the 
funny  page  of  a  Sunday  newspaper  are  made  that 
are  frequently  the  most  serious  things  in  the  actual 
experience  of  living.  A  cartoonist  might  have  found 
excellent  material  for  such  caricaturing  in  our  home 
during  the  next  few  days.  Peter  was  not  himself; 
fc  was  his  other  self,  reserved,  but  secretly  ani 
mated.  I  was  not  myself,  either.  I  felt  like  an  old 
gray-haired  key  that  could  not  turn  in  the  lock  of 
the  younger,  dearer  life  of  my  son.  Peter  said  I 
was  not  looking  well  and  suggested  that  I  should  go 


MY    SON  173 

to  a  quiet  place  in  the  country  for  a  good  long  rest. 
I  told  him  that  I  preferred  to  stay  right  there  and 
look  after  him. 

"It  will  be  time  enough,  Peter,"  I  added,  "for  me 
to  get  that  rest  when  you  marry  some  good  Christian 
woman  who  can  take  care  of  you." 

This  description  of  his  future  wife  seemed  to 
widen  the  breach  between  us.  His  relations  to  me 
took  on  the  elegance  of  filial  diplomacy. 

I  always  answer  the  phone  to  save  him  from  that 
class  of  people  who  use  it  as  a  highwayman  does 
his  gun,  to  hold  up  a  busy  man  or  a  tired  one  and 
rob  him  of  his  time  or  his  rest.  But  now  when, 
the  phone  rang  I  could  never  get  to  it  before  he  was 
already  there.  If  he  was  in  the  midst  of  preparation 
for  his  Sabbath  service  he  could  hear  it  if  the  thing 
barely  clicked,  and  he  would  be  out  of  his  study  like 
a  shot.  Some  time  during  the  evening  he  invariably 
received  the  call  he  expected,  if  he  was  not  out  call 
ing  in  person. 

One  day  Mrs.  Buckhart  came  in  from  Drumhead. 
She  talked  for  an  hour,  but  I  knew  that  she  had  not 
said  the  thing  she  came  to  tell.  She  had  the  morally 
inflated  look  a  maliciously  good  woman  has  when 
her  mind  is  full  of  something  which  is  not  good. 

"Did  you  see  the  announcement  in  the  paper  this 
morning  about  Isobel  Sangster?"  she  asked  casually 
as  she  was  going. 

I  had  not  seen  it,  I  told  her;  but  suddenly  I  real- 


174  MY   SON 

ized  that  this  was  something  I  had  been  expecting 
for  a  week. 

"She  had  an  interview  about  her  work  in  France. 
I  can't  think  how  she  dared  to  do  it,"  she  went  on. 

"Why?"  I  asked. 

"Well,  she  was  in  France  only  a  short  time,  when 
she  first  went  over.  She  has  been  in  London  for  a 
year.  She  was  married  there." 

"Married!  Did  you  say  she  is  married?"  I  ex 
claimed. 

"No;  I  said  she  was  married,  to  Captain  Gleate,  a 
British  army  officer.  That  is  what  I  mean.  She  is 
back  here  representing  herself  still  as  Isobel  Sang- 
ster." 

"Where  is  her  husband?"  I  asked,  trying  not  to 
show  what  was  going  on  in  my  mind. 

"He  has  left  her.  That  is  why  she  came  home. 
She  cannot  find  anything  of  her  husband  but  his 
lawyer.  And  this  lawyer  has  cut  off  her  allowance, 
according  to  instructions  he  received  from  the  in 
visible  Captain  Gleate,  on  account  of  Isobel's  doubt 
ful  conduct." 

She  took  out  her  handkerchief  and  patted  her 
powdered  face,  which  was  perspiring. 

"Mrs.  Sangster  told  me,"  she  went  on,  "in  strict 
est  confidence.  She  is  very  much  upset,  poor  thing, 
and  had  to  tell  somebody.  I  did  not  intend  to  men 
tion  it,  but  I  was  in  to  see  the  Sangsters  last  night. 


MY    SON  175 

Isobel  is  not  conducting  herself  as  a  married  woman 
should." 

There  was  a  little  silence  such  as  women  use  when 
they  mean  more  than  it  is  prudent  to  say.  The  one 
thought  I  held  was  that  Peter  had  been  out  the 
evening  before,  and  it  was  not  prayer-meeting  night. 

Mrs.  Buckhart  had  risen  to  take  her  leave  before 
I  could  gather  my  wits. 

"Do  you  know  what  is  going  to  happen?"  she 
demanded. 

I  implied  that  I  did  not,  without  saying  so. 

"Well,  for  the  next  ten  years  these  marriages  for 
the  duration  of  the  war  are  going  to  split  the  morals 
of  this  country.  These  pro  tern  brides  will  be  pop 
ping  up,  and  these  modern  Enoch  Arden  husbands 
will  be  drifting  in  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  to 
press  their  haggard  faces  against  the  windows  of  in 
nocent  people's  domesticity." 

She  went  down  the  steps  to  the  street,  waving  her 
hand  at  my  parlor  window,  which  was  very  sug 
gestive. 

That  night  when  the  phone  rang  I  was  sitting  be 
fore  it  with  the  receiver  to  my  ear  when  Peter  came 
down  the  hall  from  his  study. 

"That  must  be  for  me,  mother;  I  will  answer," 
he  said. 

"No;  this  call  is  for  me,  my  son,  and  I  am  answer 
ing.  It  will  take  only  a  minute,"  I  said  in  an  aside 
to  him. 


176  MY    SON 

"Yes,"  I  went  on  over  the  phone,  "this  is  Main 
two-six-seven.  Yes,  he  is  here."  I  heard  Peter 
make  a  quick  step  forward.  "This  is  Mrs.  Thomp 
son  speaking.  Can  I  take  the  message*?  .  .  .  No, 
not  unless  you  give  your  name.  .  .  .  Yes,  I  remem 
ber  you  when  you  were  Miss  Sangster.  I  only  heard 
of  your  marriage  this  morning,  Mrs.  Gleate.  I  am 
sure  my  son  does  not  know  of  it  at  all.  I  will  tell 
him  who  is  calling.  Hold  the  line  please.  .  .  .  No1? 
Very  well  then.  Good  night." 

I  hung  up  the  receiver  and  looked  at  Peter. 

"I  had  to  do  it,  my  son.  You  will  forgive  me 
presently,"  I  said. 

Then  I  told  him  what  I  had  heard. 

"And  you  see  she  does  not  deny  it!"  I  added. 

He  was  pale,  no  doubt  with  anger.  A  man  can 
be  as  mad  with  the  woman  who  saves  him  from  mak 
ing  a  fool  of  himself  as  he  is  with  the  other  one, 
who  is  ready  to  betray  him.  I  had  the  guilty  feeling 
of  having  done  my  duty  as  I  watched  Peter,  who 
had  not  said  a  word,  walk  back  up  the  hall  to  his 
study  and  close  the  door. 

This  affair  was  never  mentioned  between  us 
again.  But  I  often  wondered  who  was  responsible 
for  the  announcement  of  the  Sangster  girl's  mar 
riage,  which  appeared  in  the  afternoon  paper  the 
next  day,  but  not  among  the  social  news  items.  It 
was  as  scathingly  brief  as  a  warning,  and  headed 


MY   SON  177 

that  column  in  the  advertising  page  which  contains 
"Notices  to  the  Public." 

I  do  not  say  that  the  women  sent  to  France  during 
the  war  for  a  great  service,  which  most  of  them 
rendered  with  admirable  courage  and  fortitude, 
should  not  have  married  over  there.  The  amazing 
thing  is  that  so  small  a  number  of  them  did  marry 
when  you  consider  how  easy  it  must  have  been  under 
the  circumstances  to  choose  a  husband.  But  I  do 
think  the  last  one  of  them  who  came  home  should 
have  been  required  to  stand  a  civil-service  examina 
tion  as  to  her  matrimonial  qualifications  before  being 
allowed  to  enter  the  country.  And  if  the  military 
authorities  had  brought  back  a  roster  of  the  men 
who  married  abroad  this  would  have  prevented 
much  confusion.  In  that  case  many  young  soldiers 
who  take  a  brief  course  in  French  matrimony 
would  not  have  married  so  glibly  when  they  came 
home. 

The  hard  times  William  and  I  had  in  the  itiner 
ancy  were  real.  They  were  intelligible  and  personal 
to  us.  We  could  lay  our  fingers  on  it  and  say,  "This 
is  poverty."  Or  William  was  sent  to  a  poor  ap 
pointment  when  he  deserved  a  better  one.  The  worst 
thing  that  ever  happened  to  us  was  when  he  held 
a  revival  and  preached  and  prayed  in  vain  because 
backsliders  would  not  be  reclaimed  and  sinners  would 
not  confess  and  believe.  He  passed  through  a 
period  of  depression  at  such  times,  but  he  invariably 


178  MY   SON 

came  out  of  it  strengthened  in  his  faith.  If  things 
looked  bad  for  us  he  would  remind  me  of  that  Scrip 
ture  which  says,  "The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  within 
you."  He  derived  great  comfort  from  this  idea  of 
carrying  his  native  country  round  with  him,  removed 
and  safe  from  the  trials  and  vicissitudes  of  our  mortal 
existence. 

Sitting  here  in  this  fine  city  parsonage  with 
nothing  much  in  reach  of  me  to  do  in  the  Lord's 
name,  but  with  all  the  world  about  me  unsettled  and 
disturbed  by  bitterness,  violence  and  strange  doc 
trines,  I  can  see  us  as  we  were  then  and  as  the  world 
was  then,  comparatively  safe  and  peaceful,  two  tired 
travelers  on  the  road  somewhere  between  William's 
churches  dingy  and  dusty  and  very  little  script  in 
our  pockets,  but  having  still  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
within  us. 

The  tears  will  come  when  I  think  of  them  now, 
those  plain  sweet  days.  I  remember  little  stretches 
of  the  road  where  the  shadows  lay  cool  as  blessings 
in  the  hot  summer  days.  I  can  recall  the  sheep 
pastured  behind  Redwine  Church,  and  the  lambs  that 
strayed  at  will  among  the  tumbled  gravestones  of 
the  churchyard.  I  can  see  the  faces  of  so  many  men 
and  women  whom  we  knew  then,  and  the  way  we 
thought  of  them,  either  as  the  obedient  children  of 
God  or  the  disobedient  ones,  but  always  every  one 
of  them,  his  children.  And  all  the  time  I  am  really 
looking  down  upon  this  city  street,  filled  with  the 


MY    SON  179 

stir  and  bustle  of  traffic  and  with  the  hurrying  feet 
of  men  who  seem  so  far  removed  from  being  obed 
ient  or  even  disobedient  to  God.  j 

I  have  said  my  prayers  and  tried  to  do  my  duty, 
but  I  shall  never  be  again  as  good  a  woman  as  I 
was  then,  keeping  up  with  William  when  he  ascended 
his  mountains,  comforting  him  when  he  passed 
through  some  valley  of  defeat,  always  sure  of  that 
kingdom  of  heaven  within  him,  not  worrying 
because  I  had  no  such  deep  personal  sense  of  it 
myself. 

Toward  the  end  of  his  ministry,  when  his  memory 
failed  along  with  his  strength,  he  used  to  forget 
himself  and  preach  twice  in  succession  from  this  text 
to  the  same  congregation.  Even  if  he  promised  me 
to  preach  some  other  sermon  and  actually  did  start 
off  the  next  Sunday  with  a  different  text  he  would 
invariably  return  to  his  kingdom  of  heaven  geo 
graphy  and  devote  the  remainder  of  his  discourse  to 
telling  of  the  blessings  of  this  fair  country.  It  was 
not  until  his  memory  failed  and  he  could  not  find 
his  thoughts  on  this  subject  that  his  faith  failed  and 
he  took  up  with  Job  in  the  Scriptures. 

During  all  these  years  there  were  no  world  prob 
lems  in  our  lives,  only  those  connected  with  life 
in  the  world  to  come.  I  formed  the  habit  of  shar 
ing  William's  anxiety  about  the  saving  of  souls.  If 
the  morals  of  a  community  were  not  good  he  preached 
repentance  and  faith.  The  futility  of  changing 


180  MY   SON 

men's  lives  by  any  other  means  never  occurred  to 
him.  The  mind  we  had  was  far  beyond  fortune  or 
misfortune.  Sometimes  we  had  a  panic  of  a  presi 
dential  election,  but  we  were  so  safely  and  scrip- 
turally  poor  that  financial  oscillations  of  securities 
and  bonds  in  the  markets  did  not  affect  us  or  the 
people  whom  we  served.  My  national  sense  of  things 
was  very  vague,  and  the  only  intentional  sense  I  had 
was  strictly  missionary  and  had  to  do  with  the 
heathen  for  whom  we  prayed  and  took  up  collections 
without  ceasing.  If  you  think  in  the  lateral  terms  of 
this  present  world,  such  an  existence  was  narrow; 
but  if  you  are  accustomed  to  think  in  the  terms  of 
faith,  it  was  high.  There  was  all  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  spaces  between  the  stars  in  our 
thoughts. 

I  seemed  now  to  have  passed  entirely  out  of  that 
existence.  I  heard  so  much  bad  news  and  saw  so 
much  that  was  not  good  that  I  could  not  keep  my 
thoughts  fixed  on  things  above.  Sometimes  I  used 
to  go  about  attending  to  my  household  duties  and 
saying  over  to  myself,  "For  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  within  you!"  But  it  was  not  there.  I  had  lost 
that  sublime  effulgence  of  faith.  I  began  to  tremble 
in  my  earthly  shoes.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I 
was  mightily  concerned  for  just  the  carnal  safety  of 
mankind.  No  matter  how  earnestly  you  may  desire 
to  fix  your  thoughts  upon  higher  things  it  distracts 
your  attention  and  makes  you  nervous  to  see  all  the 


MY    SON  181 

familiar  landmarks  of  your  merely  human  existence 
flying  round  like  feathers  in  a  tempest. 

I  continued  to  read  my  Bible  and  the  Christian 
Advocate,  both  of  which  seemed  to  give  foreign 
news  of  a  world  that  had  passed  out  of  sight;  but 
I  also  read  the  secular  papers,  those  daily  serials  of 
our  civilization.  And  they  read  like  so  many  chap 
ters  of  a  doubtful  dime  novel.  Nothing  good  seemed 
to  be  going  on  in  the  world.  We  had  spent  more 
money  for  war  expenses  than  there  was  in  the  world. 
One  kind  of  ruin  or  another  stared  us  in  the  face 
every  morning  in  the  headlines  of  these  papers.  The 
cost  of  living  continued  to  rise.  And  labor  was  still 
running  round  like  a  chicken  with  its  head  off,  in 
creasing  capital  by  every  kind  of  thriftless  extrava 
gance,  and  fighting  capital  at  the  same  time  with  a 
sort  of  senseless  malignancy.  That  inner  law  which 
binds  men  to  God  and  a  good  conscience  was  laid 
aside,  and  the  whole  nation  waited  for  Congress  to 
pass  other  laws,  which  would  protect  us  against  our 
selves  and  our  neighbors  and  especially  the  profi 
teers.  But  the  two  great  political  parties  at  Wash 
ington  seemed  to  have  forgotten  the  nation.  They 
engaged  in  a  free-for-all  fight,  apparently  on  the 
peace  treaty,  but  really  it  was  a  political  wrestling 
match  in  the  interest  of  their  own  affairs. 

I  have  sometimes  wondered  that  the  worst  shrink 
age  in  the  securities  of  this  nation  has  not  occurred 
in  the  character,  honor  or  judgment  of  her  statesmen. 


182  MY    SON 

William  always  said  that  a  man  who  cared  more 
about  the  doctrines  that  distinguished  his  denomina 
tion  from  another  than  he  did  about  the  salvation 
of  souls  was  a  sort  of  mean  Christian,  if  he  was  a 
Christian  at  all.  And  it  does  seem  to  me  that  our 
leading  statesmen  care  more  for  the  fortunes  of  the 
political  parties  they  represent  than  they  do  for  the 
safety  of  this  country. 

I  suffered  spiritually  for  the  first  time  in  my  life 
from  the  miasma  of  political  news.  I  was  very  un 
easy  about  my  country;  no  less  because  now  at  last 
it  seemed  highly  probable  that  women  would  obtain 
the  ballot.  I  am  not  a  parading  suffragist,  but  I  have 
always  been  one  for  conscience'  sake.  There  is  no 
possible  doubt  that  women  can  clean  up  this  coun 
try  and  make  it  safer  for  men  as  well  as  women  and 
children  to  live  in.  But  the  question  is  whether  they 
will  do  it,  or  add  confusion  worse  confounded  to 
that  which  we  already  have.  They  are  born  poli 
ticians.  They  practiced  politics  long  before  men 
practiced  anything  but  brute  force  to  obtain  their 
rights.  They  have  been  obliged  always  to  resort  to 
persuasion  and  policies  to  get  what  they  wanted 
even  in  the  small  one-woman  relation  to  one  man. 
Now  that  they  have  won  the  opportunity  to  exer 
cise  these  well-developed  gifts  in  national  affairs 
nobody  knows  what  will  happen.  My  own  suspicion 
is  that  the  great  majority  of  them  will  not  exercise 
it  at  all,  but  they  will  still  devote  themselves  to 


MY    SON  183 

getting  elected  to  and  by  the  one  man,  for  the  same 
old  office  of  love  and  sacrifice  which  they  have 
always  held.  But  the  thing  that  troubles  me  is  this : 
So  far,  men,  rightly  or  wrongly,  have  borne  the  chief 
reputation  for  guilt  in  the  world.  They  have  done 
the  cheating  and  swindling  in  the  public  eye  while 
the  pretty  pilferings  of  vain  women,  who  are  mere 
ornaments,  have  been  concealed  good-naturedly  by 
their  mankind.  The  men  have  shared  their  sex's 
reputation  for  not  being  moral  with  a  grin  of  secret 
satisfaction  even  when  they  were  quite  moral.  They 
have  conducted  the  business  and  elections  of  this 
nation  with  successful  unscrupulousness  or  any 
other  way  they  pleased.  And  it  has  been  very  diffi 
cult  to  embarrass  them  about  their  deeds  done  in 
the  body.  They  take  a  marauding  satisfaction  in 
these  bodies. 

But  now  the  woman  citizen  will  be  subject  to  all 
the  rigors  of  adverse  publicity.  What  women  really 
are  in  secret  will  be  known  in  the  open  for  the  first 
time  since  their  gender  and  gentleness  made  them 
sacred  to  just  men.  They  will  not  be  sacred.  Maybe 
they  are  not  entirely  so,  anyway,  but  it  is  some 
times  more  dangerous  to  destroy  an  illusion  than  a 
civilization.  What  would  happen  to  us  if  we  sud 
denly  discovered  that  men  really  are  not  brave?  It 
would  be  a  terrific  loss.  What  will  happen  if 
women  are  dismantled  and  picked  to  pieces  in  the 
shambles  of  political  life4?  Even  if  they  do  not  de- 


184  MY    SON 

serve  it  this  will  happen.  Besides,  somebody  must 
be  meek  and  long-suffering.  With  all  their  follies 
and  vanities  and  limitations  it  has  been  the  women 
who  have  always  practiced  this  negative  but  essen 
tial  virtue. 

I  may  be  mistaken,  but  it  seemed  to  me  that 
the  very  rumor  of  suffrage  has  upset  the  depend 
able  patience  of  my  sex.  A  few  years  ago  the 
women  belonging  to  the  missionary  societies  in  our 
church  owned  and  administered  some  millions  of 
dollars'  worth  of  property  and  funds.  At  a  certain 
General  Conference  they  allowed  the  bishops  to  take 
it  away  from  them  without  a  murmur.  Quite  re 
cently  these  same  women  have  stewed  and  stirred 
things  until  they  have  obtained,  in  spite  of  these 
bishops,  a  kind  of  suffrage  in  church  affairs  under  the 
name  of  "laity  rights."  I  mention  this  instance  not 
to  condemn  it  but  to  indicate  that  the  bonds  which 
formerly  held  women  no  longer  bind  them  anywhere. 

It  is  not  the  growth  of  the  divorce  evil  in  this 
country  that  is  so  significant  now  as  the  kind  of 
women  who  are  demanding  divorces.  As  a  rule  your 
divorcee  has  been  married  only  a  few  years  or  she 
is  of  the  sporting  class  who  marries  for  alimony  only; 
but  it  is  not  unusual  now  to  read  the  account  of  some 
old  gray-haired  wife  who  sails  into  the  courts  and 
demands  a  divorce  from  the  husband  with  whom  she 
has  lived  for  thirty  or  forty  years.  And  she  will 
ask  for  it  on  the  same  grounds  she  has  endured  with 


MY    SON  185 

meekness  all  those  years.  I  do  not  say  she  ought 
not  have  it.  What  I  claim  is  that  something  awful 
is  going  on  when  women  of  that  age  can  rise  up  and 
swear  themselves  out  of  wedlock. 

The  activities  of  the  church  were  never  so  well 
advertised  as  they  are  to-day;  but  the  spiritual  ex 
periences  of  Christian  men  are  not.  If  there  could  be 
or  ever  is  now  such  a  thing  as  an  old-fashioned  love 
feast  where  somebody  besides  dingy,  forlorn 
preachers  at  an  Annual  Conference  praise  the  Lord 
for  his  blessings,  there  would  be  no  sign  of  it  the 
next  morning  on  the  streets  or  in  the  world's  places 
of  business.  If  a  very  rich  and  prominent  man 
should  rise  up  in  an  experience  meeting  and  tell  what 
the  Lord  had  done  for  him,  and  maybe  let  go  enough 
to  move  about  shaking  hands  wi+h  the  brethren,  I 
reckon  this  ought  to  be  regarded  as  sensational  news, 
because  it  so  rarely  happens.  Your  rich  man  may  be 
generous,  but  you  almost  never  see  him  prance  in  the 
spirit.  I  doubt  if  a  man  can  with  his  pockets  full  of 
money.  Still,  if  it  did  happen  the  papers  that  men 
tion  everything  else  he  does  would  suppress  this.  I 
do  not  know  why,  unless  the  witness  of  public 
opinion,  which  is  far  more  drastic  than  the  witness  of 
the  Spirit,  might  test  his  professions  to  the  point  of 
bankruptcy  according  to  that  Scripture  which  says: 
"Sell  all  that  thou  hast,  and  distribute  unto  the 
poor."  I  reckon  that  verse  in  the  Bible  has  kept  many 
an  old  rich  man  from  going  too  far  under  the  stress 


186  MY   SON 

of  spiritual  emotions.  But  what  happens  in  the 
world  reports  itself  like  a  ticker  in  the  church.  The 
trend  of  the  times  comes  in  with  the  congregation  and 
sits  bolt  upright  during  prayers,  looking  round  when 
it  should  be  on  its  knees. 

Peter  had  barely  collected  the  hundred  thousand 
dollars  for  the  centenary  fund  which  had  been 
assessed  on  his  church  when  Mr.  Cathcart,  who  con 
tributed  most  liberally  to  it,  became  involved  in  a 
scandal.  This  was  a  well-staged  blackmail  perform 
ance  shockingly  personal  to  Mr.  Cathcart,  not  to  go 
into  the  details.  He  was  innocent.  The  papers 
insisted  that  he  was,  but  they  published  every  scrap 
of  this  news  about  Cathcart.  Everybody  said  he  was 
innocent,  but  very  few  believed  that  he  was  entirely 
so.  I  suppose  this  was  because  it  is  very  difficult  for 
a  man  to  be  entirely  innocent  of  anything. 

Straight  on,  now,  what  happened  in  the  world 
began  to  happen  in  that  church.  Peter  and  the  press 
and  the  prominent  members  had  scarcely  got  Cath 
cart  out  of  his  difficulties  more  dead  than  alive  and 
his  pastel-colored  clothes  changed  to  the  pepper-and- 
salt  tones  more  becoming  to  a  man  of  his  age  when 
Mrs.  Hunk  became  insanely  jealous  of  Mr.  Hunk, 
and  we  all  heard  about  it.  This  was  one  of  those 
cases  of  matrimonial  blackmail  which  occurs  fre 
quently  without  attracting  so  much  public  attention. 
Many  a  husband  lives  and  dies  in  an  atmosphere  of 
distrust  created  by  his  wife,  whom  no  one  else  sus- 


MY    SON  187 

pects  of  this  meanness.  And  there  are  so  many 
women  whose  married  lives  are  long  penal  sentences 
served  beneath  the  groundless  suspicions  of  their  hus 
bands. 

Mr.  Hunk  and  his  wife  are  members  of  Peter's 
church.  He  is  meekly  prominent  there,  she  is  ex 
cessively  so.  He  is  one  of  those  dull  men  who  suc 
ceed  in  business  by  sticking  to  it,  admirable,  decent 
and  distressingly  homely.  His  large  nose  sits  a  trifle 
sidewise  on  his  face,  as  if  it  perpetually  dodged  the 
thought  you  aimed  at  it.  He  has  a  double  chin  but 
not  much  of  a  real  chin.  His  large  blue  eyes  are 
bloodshot,  always  suffused  with  a  sort  of  physical 
tearfulness. 

Mrs.  Hunk  is  a  dark,  elderly  woman  with  a 
wrinkled  skin  and  a  snap  in  her  black  eyes.  She  sug 
gests  still  the  spiteful  prettiness  of  her  youth.  But 
now  she  dresses  like  a  virtue,  which  is  never  a  becom 
ing  way  for  any  woman  to  dress,  but  always  accusa 
tive.  She  wears  her  skirts  longer  and  wider  than  the 
fashion  is,  her  waist  tighter  and  buttoned  up.  She 
walks  with  a  swish,  and  pops  her  heels  on  the  floor 
as  if  authority  was  vested  in  these  heels.  It  was  not 
that  she  always  preceded  Mr.  Hunk  down  the  aisle 
of  the  church  on  Sunday  morning,  it  was  the  subdued 
way  he  followed  her  that  was  significant. 

One  hot  afternoon  when  everything  was  going 
from  bad  to  worse  in  this  turgid  city,  Mr.  Hunk 
called  on  Peter.  They  went  into  the  study  together. 


188  MY   SON 

From  where  I  sat  in  the  parlor  I  saw  Mr.  Hunk  go 
back  and  close  the  door  of  the  study,  which  meant, 
of  course,  that  he  had  something  very  private  to  say. 

They  were  in  there  a  long  time.  I  could  hear  the 
rumble  of  Hunk's  voice,  but  nothing  at  all  in  reply 
from  Peter.  Silences  fell,  then  the  same  voice  would 
begin  again  in  broken  sentences  like  that  of  a  man 
overtaken  in  prayer  by  the  stress  of  his  emotions. 

I  endeavored  to  fix  my  attention  on  the  trimming 
I  was  crocheting  for  a  pair  of  pillow  cases,  but  it  is 
very  difficult  to  do  that  at  my  age  when  something  is 
going  on  in  the  next  room  and  you  do  not  know  what 
is  going  on. 

Finally  they  came  out  in  the  hall.  I  heard  Mr. 
Hunk  blow  his  nose,  though  it  was  summer  weather, 
when  people  rarely  have  occasion  to  blow  their  noses. 
He  said  something  in  the  raucous  voice  of  a  man 
whose  very  words  ache  with  grief,  and  Peter  an 
swered  soothingly,  as  he  took  leave  of  him,  that  he 
did  not  think  it  was  serious  and  that  it  would  soon 
pass  away.  This  sounded  like  a  boil,  but  I  knew  it 
could  not  be  a  boil. 

Then  Peter  came  in  and  sat  down.  He  had  the 
mystified  look  a  young  doctor  must  sometimes  wear 
when  he  is  called  to  attend  a  patient  whose  complaint 
is  one  in  which  he  did  not  graduate  as  a  medical 
student. 

"Mother,"  he  said  presently,  "I  wish  you  would 
call  on  Mrs.  Hunk." 


MY    SON  189 

I  regarded  him  inquiringly. 

"It  is  a  case  I  cannot  handle,"  he  went  on. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  Mrs.  Hunk?"  I  asked. 

"She  is  insanely  jealous  of  her  husband,"  he  an 
swered  with  a  slow  grin,  probably  at  the  expense  of 
Hunk's  ludicrous  unattractiveness. 

"He  was  in  here  a  while  ago  to  see  me  about  this. 
Mrs.  Hunk  has  become  a  crisis.  He  is  all  broken  up, 
humiliated.  Never  given  her  the  slightest  cause. 
They  have  been  married  nearly  thirty  years,  and  this 
is  a  new  development,  though  he  admits  that  she  has 
always  been  inclined  to — well,  keep  an  eye  on  him," 
he  concluded  dryly. 

I  told  Peter  that  I  was  willing  to  do  my  Christian 
duty,  but  that  the  Spirit  had  never  led  me  to  the  folly 
of  trying  to  restore  the  confidence  of  another  woman 
in  her  own  husband.  I  said  that  jealousy  was  a 
disease,  a  form  of  hysteria,  and  in  Mrs.  Hunk's  case 
I  thought  it  was  probably  a  virulent  form  of 
malicious  hysteria. 

"But  something  must  be  done.  He  says  he  can't 
stand  the  inferno  of  her  suspicions,"  Peter  insisted. 

"Well,  that  is  the  remedy,"  I  answered.  "If  he  is 
innocent  she  knows  it.  So  soon  as  she  discovers  that 
he  will  not  endure  her  persecution  she  will  stop  it. 
Tell  him  to  show  his  teeth  at  Mrs.  Hunk!"  I  advised. 

Peter  laughed. 

"All  women  are  instinctively  afraid  of  men,"  I 
explained.  "If  Mr.  Hunk  went  home  this  evening, 


190  MY    SON 

roared  in  his  strictly  masculine  voice,  found  fault 
with  the  dinner,  kicked  a  chair  across  the  room,  and 
growled  a  look  at  his  wife,  she  would  be  a  changed 
woman.  She  would  forget  her  jealously  in  this  real 
emergency  of  soothing  a  savage  beast." 

Peter  laughed  again.  He  said  he  had  no  idea  I 
could  think  up  such  a  fiercely  unchristian  doctrine. 
I  told  him  there  was  much  in  human  relations  that 
did  not  come  under  the  head  of  Christian  doctrines. 

"The  trouble  is  poor  old  Hunk  is  not  a  savage 
beast,"  he  said. 

"And  he  is  a  good  man,"  I  added,  "else  he  would 
have  found  out  long  ago  how  to  manage  Mrs.  Hunk. 
That  is  frequently  the  reason  why  bad  men  keep  their 
domestic  relations  in  order.  They  create  a  diversion 
by  being  so  disagreeable  at  home  that  they  achieve 
meekness  instead  of  suspicion  in  their  wives." 

Peter  said  that  as  Mr.  Hunk's  pastor  he  doubted 
the  wisdom  of  giving  this  kind  of  advice. 

I  went  on  crocheting  and  thinking  after  he  had 
gone  back  to  his  study.  This  affair  of  the  Hunks, 
I  decided,  was  another  case  of  the  general  insolvency 
of  faith  that  had  existed  and  that  no  longer  existed 
between  these  two  people.  Not  to  believe  had  be 
come  the  habit  of  men  and  women. 

On  the  previous  evening  Peter  had  four  young 
men  in  to  dine  with  us.  They  were  members  of  his 
church  and  prominent  in  business  and  professional 
circles.  After  dinner  the  conversation  did  what  it 


MY   SON  191 

frequently  does  in  my  house.  It  drifted  out  in  a 
discussion  of  conditions  in  the  world  at  large,  and 
left  me  sitting  in  my  silence,  merely  listening. 

I  was  greatly  entertained  for  a  time,  as  an  elder 
person  is  with  the  more  or  less  declamatory  opinions 
of  young  people.  Then  I  had  a  queer  experience.  Seth 
Wilkes,  who  is  a  banker,  was  talking  when  I  sud 
denly  discovered  that  no  one  in  the  parlor  except 
Peter  believed  a  single  word  Wilkes  was  saying.  I 
was  indignant.  I  felt  sorry  for  this  earnest  young 
man.  Presently  Mr.  Hickson,  who  is  a  lawyer,  had 
the  floor,  and  I  was  astonished  to  realize  that  no  one 
believed  what  he  said,  or  even  in  his  sincerity,  ex 
cept  my  son  Peter,  who  sat  with  his  legs  crossed,  his 
excellent  countenance  lifted  and  lighted  with  the 
animation  of  perfect  faith  in  everybody's  sincerity. 
This  is  why  I  say  Peter  is  a  good  man.  He  can  so 
cheerfully  and  easily  believe  in  anybody  and  every 
body.  He  was  far  from  suspecting  the  fact  that  on 
this  evening  it  was  his  own  radiant  confidence  which 
inspired  his  guests  to  talk  so  freely;  but  I  laid  down 
my  work  and  witnessed  a  strange  thing,  as  if  I  had 
been  behind  the  scenes  of  these  men's  inner  minds, 
and  I  knew  before  the  evening  was  over  that  not  one 
of  them  had  any  confidence  in  the  sincerity  of  the 
others.  They  were  trained  to  doubt.  They  could 
not  have  believed  just  the  simple  word  of  a  man 
unless  it  was  indorsed,  with  enough  collateral  put 
up  to  make  it  and  keep  it  good. 


192  MY    SON 

Now  you  may  restore  confidence  in  the  markets 
of  the  world  that  way,  with  just  capital,  but  you  can 
not  restore  the  confidence  of  man  in  man  with  any 
thing  but  the  renewal  of  faith  in  the  honor  and 
integrity  of  men.  Religion  is  not  the  only  faith  by 
which  we  live.  All  human  relations  must  be  based 
upon  belief.  This  is  the  ruin  that  we  face,  more 
disastrous  than  war  or  famine.  It  is  a  pestilence  that 
attacks  the  very  soul  of  mankind.  Wisdom  is  becom 
ing  cynicism.  And  all  the  news  of  the  world  is  bad. 
Nobody  ever  marries  and  lives  happily  ever  after  in 
the  morning  paper,  but  they  are  divorced.  I  won 
dered  what  would  happen  if  we  read  a  press  dispatch 
some  morning  that  a  lady  had  just  died  after  living 
forty  years  with  a  cantankerous  and  unworthy  .hus 
band,  that  she  had  performed  her  love  and  duties 
faithfully  and  patiently,  brought  up  a  large  family 
of  excellent  sons  and  daughters,  who  were  doing  well 
and  honorably  in  the  world.  Well,  it  would  not  be 
regarded  as  news.  The  universal  suspicion  would  be 
that  a  little  old  Christian  obituary  had  crept  across 
the  wires  by  mistake.  But  if  a  woman  has  murdered 
her  husband  and  flung  her  innocent  babes  in  a  man 
hole  of  a  sewer  it  would  be  news,  telegraphed  to 
every  paper  in  the  country. 

I  mentioned  this  to  Peter  that  evening  at  dinner. 
I  wanted  to  know  why  there  was  so  much  bad 
news  and  no  news  of  goodness.  He  said  a  queer 
thing. 


MY   SON  193 

"Goodness,  mother,  is  sacred,  and  it  is  not  talked 
about  much.  Our  virtues  are  private;  but  the  evil 
that  we  do  concerns  the  safety  of  society  and  is 
handled  by  the  public." 

Peter  sometimes  mentions  the  subconscious  mind 
in  his  sermons  when  he  is  digging  his  congregation. 
I  thought  when  he  offered  this  explanation  he  had 
stated  one  of  the  subconscious  truths  of  human  ex 
perience.  And  I  had  not  more  than  thought  it  before 
he  offered  the  conscious  truth  and  the  real  reason 
for  the  popular  currency  of  sensational  news,  which 
it  seems  our  virtues  never  produce. 

"Besides,"  he  went  on,  "the  people  demand  it. 
And  they  will  have  it." 

I  retorted  that  giving  the  people  what  they  wanted 
was  not  giving  them  what  they  ought  to  have.  I  was 
tempted  to  add  that  this  was  the  trouble  with  the 
ministry,  as  well  as  with  the  gossips  and  the  news 
papers.  Preachers  were  softening  the  gospel  so  that 
it  would  not  waken  a  man  dead  in  his  trespasses  and 
sins.  But  I  try  never  to  hurt  Peter's  feelings  or  to 
discourage  him,  so  I  did  not  say  it. 

In  return  for  this  alms  which  I  gave  my  son  in 
secret  I  reckon  the  Lord  blessed  me  with  an  idea,  for 
I  had  one,  like  a  shot,  from  somewhere. 

I  asked  Peter  why  goodness  could  not  be  featured. 
"Like,  well,  the  posters  we  had  to  advertise  the  cen 
tenary  campaign,"  I  concluded. 

He  turned  the  point  of  this  question,  as  he  fre- 


194  MY    SON 

quently  did  when  I  had  him  cornered,  by  offering 
me  a  compliment.  He  said  I  was  one  fine  large 
feature  of  goodness  myself  and  all  I  had  to  do  was 
to  go  on  living. 

I  retired  early  that  night,  but  not  to  bed.  I  had 
a  bee  in  my  bonnet.  Why  shouldn't  some  one  start 
a  propaganda  campaign  advertising  that  which  was 
good  in  men  and  women1?  I  sat  in  my  room  and 
thought  about  it.  Then  I  put  on  my  spectacles  and 
turned  on  the  light  above  my  desk,  took  out  some 
paper  and  sharpened  a  pencil. 

I  was  never  able  to  feel  the  assurance  of  having  a 
message  for  the  world.  The  few  people  I  have 
known  afflicted  this  way  labored  under  an  absurdly 
egotistical  illusion.  Rather,  I  felt  now  like  an  old 
woman  who  is  about  to  write  a  letter  from  a  far 
country  to  my  whole  dear  human  family,  just  a  letter 
giving  them  the  news  of  goodness,  and  nothing  else. 
The  extent  of  my  literary  labors  so  far  had  been  the 
book  which  I  wrote  years  ago  about  William.  This 
was  not,  strictly  speaking,  an  act  of  letters,  it  was 
the  way  I  had  of  putting  a  crown  on  William's  head 
that  could  never  be  removed  by  the  elders  and 
bishops.  This  book  was  not  published  on  account 
of  its  literary  merit,  but  because  it  recorded  the  life 
and  the  merits  of  a  singularly  good  man.  It  ap 
peared  anonymously,  and  the  authorship  was  at  once 
claimed  by  so  many  different  women  that  if  I  had 
not  been  William's  only  wife  I  might  have  doubted 


MY   SON  195 

my  own  identity  as  the  real  author,  especially  since 
I  could  never  write  the  same  way  afterward.  But 
now  all  at  once  as  I  sat  there  before  my  desk  I  felt 
that  same  singing  power  of  words,  and  I  began  to 
set  down  the  thoughts  that  came  to  me.  I  do  not 
claim  that  it  was  well  or  smartly  done,  but  the 
matter  was  excellent — paragraph  pictures  of  the 
good  people  I  had  known,  with  no  more  connection 
than  there  was  between  the  divorce  notices  in  the 
morning  paper. 

I  wrote  a  sketch  of  John  and  Sarah  High- 
tower.  John  Hightower  was  the  meanest  man 
I  ever  knew.  He  was  ill-tempered  in  his  home. 
He  was  so  stingy  that  Mrs.  Hightower  was  re 
duced  to  picking  up  the  faulty  apples  in  their 
orchard  and  selling  them  to  get  the  money  for  her 
missionary  dues.  The  only  variation  she  ever  had 
in  the  hard  monotony  of  her  life  was  when  he  was 
drunk  and  behaved  worse  than  usual.  She  could 
have  had  a  divorce  for  the  asking,  any  time,  but  she 
never  complained.  She  stood  by  him  and  their  chil 
dren.  She  had  a  curious  happiness  in  these  children. 
She  was  their  secret  providence.  After  a  while,  when 
his  sons  and  daughters  had  grown  up  and  married, 
old  Hightower's  temper  seemed  to  wear  out.  He 
loosened  up  a  bit.  And  Mrs.  Hightower  had  a  few 
things  she  had  always  craved.  They  say  one  day  he 
looked  at  her  and  said:  "Well,  Sarah,  we  were 
happily  married,  after  all !"  And  they  say  she  told 


196  MY    SON 

somebody  that  she  had  always  known  John  was  a 
good  man  if  he  hadn't  been  so  worried  with  living. 
The  marriage  that  turns  out  well  is  the  happy  mar 
riage,  no  matter  how  hard  a  time  the  two  people  in 
it  have  had  bearing  with  each  other. 

I  had  company  that  night  in  my  heart,  so  many 
men  and  women  I  had  known  seemed  to  come  back 
with  their  little  good  deeds  to  be  recorded.  As  fast 
as  I  could  set  down  as  briefly  as  possible  how  Brother 
Hicks,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  waited  on  his  bedridden 
wife,  cooked,  cleaned  and  made  a  living  for  her  on 
a  little  old  rabbit-skin  farm  he  had,  I  would  recall 
someone  else  who  had  been  the  patient  good  man  in 
the  community  where  he  lived,  but  who  could  never 
get  on  very  well  with  the  saints  in  the  church  because 
he  was  so  busy  defending  and  building  up  the  sinners. 

I  had  more  than  a  dozen  of  these  little  tales  of 
honor  and  cheerful  long-suffering  written  before 
Peter  came  up  and  asked  me  what  I  was  doing 
up  so  late.  I  told  him  I  had  been  writing  a  few 
letters.  You  are  justified  in  concealing  the  truth 
sometimes. 

The  next  morning  I  added  a  few  hopeful  sen 
tences,  like  the  smart  paragraphs  we  see  on  the  edi 
torial  page  of  a  newspaper,  only  they  were  not  smart 
and  they  did  not  bite.  Good  little  words  sowed  in 
sentences  which  I  hoped  would  come  up  and  grow 
in  the  minds  of  those  who  read  them. 

When  you  are  not  accustomed  to  writing  it  wakens 


MY   SON  197 

you  in  the  night  and  you  get  up  and  put  down  some 
thing  that  you  forgot  to  tell.  I  did  this  for  a  week. 
I  was  up  and  down  so  much  with  my  memories  that 
Peter  heard  me  one  night  and  wanted  to  know 
through  the  door  between  our  rooms  if  I  was  ill.  I 
told  him  no,  that  I  had  heard  a  noise  and  had  risen  to 
see  what  it  was.  You  may  be  permitted  to  use  a 
figure  of  speech  sometimes,  which  is  the  symbol  of 
the  truth  concealed.  The  noise  I  heard  was  of  tired 
feet  on  a  country  road  long,  long  ago,  when  Jasper 
Wood  came  in  the  dead  hours  of  the  night  to  get 
William  to  go  to  old  Tim  Herndon,  who  was  dying 
and  had  made  up  his  mind  to  repent  if  they  could  get 
a  preacher  in  time  to  do  it.  I  had  forgotten  to  put 
Jasper  in.  He  was  a  rich  poor  man  who  lived  on 
the  Rocky  Road  circuit.  He  had  a  hard  task  mak 
ing  a  living  because  he  was  everybody's  good  Samari 
tan.  If  a  man  was  in  trouble  he  went  to  see  Jasper 
about  it  and  stopped  him  from  plowing  his  corn 
until  he  had  relieved  his  mind.  If  anybody  wanted 
something  quick  he  went  to  Jasper  and  borrowed  it, 
even  if  he  never  paid  it  back.  If  someone  was  sick 
he  sent  for  Jasper.  And  in  spite  of  being  dragged 
hither  and  thither  by  his  good  heart  Jasper  man 
aged  to  prosper. 

When  I  had  written  many  pages  of  this  stuff  I 
sent  it  without  a  word  of  explanation  to  the  editor 
of  our  leading  daily  paper. 

Nothing  happened  for  two  weeks.    I  endured  the 


198  MY    SON 

strange  suspense  of  an  author.  My  only  comfort  was 
that  no  one  knew  that  I  was  "hair  hung  and  breeze 
shaken,"  as  the  old  preacher  used  to  say,  between  the 
editorial  wastebasket  and  the  world  of  letters.  I  still 
appeared  to  be  the  mother  I  had  always  been  to 
Peter,  and  nothing  else.  Maybe  a  trifle  absent- 
minded  at  times,  having  thought  of  another  good 
deed  that  I  might  have  put  in,  or  feeling  a  little  de 
pressed,  as  no  doubt  real  authors  do  when  they  fear 
the  dangerously  variable  weather  of  an  editor's  judg 
ments. 

I  had  lost  hope  when  the  third  week  passed  and 
there  was  no  sign  of  a  breach  in  the  editorial  policy 
of  this  paper  to  publish  the  worst  and  nothing  but  the 
worst  that  was  going  on. 

One  Sunday  afternoon  Peter,  who  is  not  above 
taking  his  Sunday  paper  on  the  Lord's  Day,  was  in 
the  parlor  reading  it.  I  was  in  the  dining  room 
helping  the  maid  clear  the  table.  Then  I  heard 
Peter  laugh.  He  has  a  laugh  that  comes  out  of  him 
with  a  joyful  whoop  and  ends  in  a  strictly  mascu 
line  giggle.  I  thought  he  must  be  looking  at  the 
funny  page,  because  he  is  not  above  that,  either. 

"Mother!  I  have  something  to  show  you!"  he 
called  out. 

"I  will  come  presently,  Peter,"  I  answered,  going 
on  with  what  I  was  doing. 

The  next  moment  he  came  in,  grinning  broadly. 


MY    SON  199 

"Look  at  that!"  he  exclaimed,  spreading  a  page 
of  the  paper  before  me. 

There  was  the  picture  of  an  old  man  and  woman 
seated  side  by  side,  looking  grim  and  strong  in  their 
years,  as  if  they  had  made  a  long  journey  together 
and  knew  they  had  come  the  right  road.  Beneath 
was  printed:  "Happily  Married."  Two  or  three 
smaller  pictures,  of  plain  virtuous-looking  men  and 
women,  appeared  below,  the  kind  you  see  in  old 
family  albums,  and  made  long  before  photographers 
learned  the  lying  art  of  touching  up  their  negatives, 
but  left  the  light  to  tell  the  truth  about  your  grand 
mother's  wrinkles  and  her  old-fashioned  breastpin 
and  the  mole  on  your  grandfather's  nose. 

I  stared  at  these  illustrations  and  glanced  up  in 
quiringly  at  Peter,  as  you  do  when  you  fail  to  see 
the  joke. 

"But  you  have  not  read  the  headline!"  he  said, 
crinkling  his  eyes  to  a  keener  humor  at  me. 

Then  I  saw  printed  at  the  top  of  the  page  in  tall 
type: 

GOOD  NEWS 
And  beneath,  in  a  smaller  type: 

THE  JUST  SHALL  LIVE  BY  FAITH 

Long  paragraphs  and  short  ones  followed,  each 
with  some  good  old  motto  for  a  title. 


200  MY    SON 

I  experienced  an  overwhelming  sense  of  guilt,  con 
founded  with  the  gratification  of  a  secret  pride.  My 
name  was  not  there,  but  I  myself  had  appeared  in 
print.  I  forgot  for  the  moment  the  pious  purpose  I 
had  when  these  sketches  were  written.  I  was  flushed, 
elated  and  very  fearful  lest  my  son  should  suspect 
me. 

"Peter,  these  are  not  my  reading  glasses.  I  can 
not  make  out  what  it  is  all  about,"  I  said  faintly. 

"Well,  it  is  all  about  what  you  talk  of  so  much — 
the  things  good  men  have  done,  the  patience  with 
which  good  women  have  endured.  It  sounds  so 
much  like  you  that  I  could  almost  suspect  you  have 
been  giving  an  interview  to  one  of  these  smart  young 
reporters !"  he  said  teasingly. 

"You  know  I  would  never  do  such  a  thing!"  I  re 
torted. 

"Well,  some  fellow  has  put  over  a  good  thing.  It 
comes  corking  near  to  being  literature.  Listen  to 
this,"  he  said,  running  his  eye  down  one  of  the  col 
umns,  and  then  beginning  to  read  aloud  what  I  had 
written  about  Jasper  Wood  coming  along  the  dusty 
road  at  night  like  a  whole  regiment  on  his  two  feet 
to  fetch  the  preacher  for  an  old  sinner  who  was  about 
to  die  in  his  sins,  because  he  would  not  make  his 
peace  without  a  minister  to  receive  and  witness  his 
confession. 

"Now  that  sings!"  Peter  exclaimed.  "You  hear 
the  whir  of  wings  about  that  old  man  of  God,  hurry- 


MY   SON  201 

ing  with  his  salvation  for  that  old  scout  about  to 
pass." 

I  regarded  Peter's  back  thoughtfully  as  he  passed 
through  the  door  into  the  parlor,  still  scanning  this 
page  of  the  paper.  It  was  strange  that  he  did  not 
recognize  this  preacher  as  his  own  father.  How  far 
removed  he  was  still  from  those  great  substances  in 
the  lives  of  men  out  of  which  alone  poetry,  religion 
and  literature  are  made. 

Then  I  took  an  indignant  turn  on  my  own  heels 
because  he  was  so  far  from  even  suspecting  that  his 
old  sundown  mother  had  written  this  thing.  They 
who  know  us  best  know  only  our  limitations  best. 
You  are  much  more  likely  to  surprise  your  family 
than  the  world  if  you  achieve  something. 

Vanity  must  be  a  very  quick  growth !  Here  I  was 
as  secretly  resentful  at  Peter  because  he  failed  to 
recognize  me  as  the  author  of  these  little  candle-lit 
tales  as  if  he  had  seen  the  picture  of  his  own  mother 
and  did  not  know  her  face  because  her  name  was  not 
written  beneath  it. 

I  went  back  to  the  table,  my  hand  trembling  so 
that  the  top  tittered  against  the  rim  of  the  butter 
dish  when  I  put  it  on.  It  is  a  wonder  to  me  how  real 
authors  endure  the  excitement  of  their  own  per 
formances. 

Later  in  the  afternoon,  when  Peter  had  gone  some 
where  I  went  in  and  read  the  whole  of  this  Good- 
News  page,  much  as  you  repeat  the  prayer  you  said 


MY   SON 

last  week.  My  memory  is  not  very  good  except  for 
Scriptures  and  hymns,  but  I  reckon  I  could  have  re 
peated  every  word  on  that  page  before  I  was  done 
with  it.  It  is  odd  how  curious  we  are  about  the 
simplest  little  image  of  our  own  minds  we  create, 
as  the  homeliest  woman  studies  the  reflection  of  her 
own  face  in  a  mirror.  I  doubt  if  this  is  due  to 
vanity,  but  probably  to  a  sort  of  perpetual  astonish 
ment  that  what  you  really  are  is  so  completely  hidden 
by  this  countenance.  So  it  was  a  sort  of  miracle  to 
see  the  insides  of  my  mind  spread  in  type  on  this 
page,  and  to  know  that  no. one  would  suspect  that, 
least  of  all  the  feeling  and  purpose  with  which  I  had 
written. 

At  last  I  took  the  scissors,  cut  this  part  of  the 
paper  and  climbed  the  stairs  to  the  attic,  where  Wil 
liam's  sermons  lay  neatly  folded  in  the  old  tin  box. 
What  sublime  imagery  they  contained  of  a  good 
man's  heart,  how  much  more  bravely  they  have  stood 
out  than  these  pale  shadows  of  mine  which  I  laid 
among  them.  I  closed  the  lid  and  remained  awhile 
on  my  knees  before  it,  not  to  pray  but  to  grieve  that 
William's  son  was  not  such  a  preacher,  that  so  much 
of  the  faith  that  William  had  lay  folded  away  out 
of  the  thoughts  and  minds  of  men,  like  these  yel 
lowed  pages  of  his  old  sermons. 

This  Good-News  page  created  much  favorable 
comment.  The  wedded  life  of  the  Hightowers  and 
Jasper  Wood's  cheerful  goodness  became  the  topics 


MY   SON  203 

of  social  discussion.  I  was  obliged  to  exercise  con 
siderable  repression  at  a  missionary  tea  during  the 
week,  when  a  smart  young  matron  said  Mrs.  High- 
tower  was  a  fool,  and  that  the  modern  wife  would 
know  a  sight  better  how  to  take  care  of  herself  in 
the  married  relation,  or  get  out  of  it! 

Peter  met  Mr.  Quick,  the  editor  of  the  paper,  at 
the  Add  and  Carry  Club.  He  said  Mr.  Quick  told 
him  that  he  had  long  considered  some  such  feature 
as  this  for  his  Sunday  edition,  and  considered  him 
self  lucky  to  have  hit  upon  the  right  idea;  the  people 
needed  a  change  from  the  catastrophic,  and  he 
thought  there  would  be  a  reaction  toward  old- 
fashioned  religious  idealism.  He  invited  Peter  to 
contribute  something  to  this  page.  He  said  the 
machinery  of  press  news  was  not  adapted  to  furnish 
ing  material  for  such  a  feature,  and  that  was  the  only 
trouble  he  anticipated  in  keeping  the  thing  going. 
Peter  said  he  thought  he  had  a  thing  or  two  that 
might  help  Quick  out  in  this  emergency.  He  had 
asked  Quick  where  he  obtained  the  copy  for  that  first 
page. 

"He  grinned  and  told  me  that  was  a  secret,  but 
he  admitted  what  I  suspected,  that  nearly  all  the 
copy  came  from  the  same  source,"  Peter  said  when 
he  was  telling  me  later  of  this  conversation  with 
Quick. 

"But  I  doubt  if  he  can  depend  on  it,"  he  added, 
"and  I  imagine  he  plans  to  get  the  preachers  of  the 


204  MY    SON 

city  to  help  him  carry  the  thing.  There  will  be  one 
difficulty." 

"What  is  that?"  I  asked. 

"Most  of  them  will  want  to  sign  their  names, 
and  he  prefers  that  all  the  copy  should  be  anony 
mous,"  he  explained. 

"Why  should  they?"  I  wanted  to  know. 

"Well,"  he  answered,  smiling  wittily,  "preachers 
are  like  other  folks — they  want  their  children  to 
bear  their  names.  It  is  customary  and  natural.  A 
man's  thoughts  are  as  much  the  offspring  of  his  mind 
as  they  are  of  his  body." 

The  following  Sunday  there  was  a  fine  short  essay 
at  the  top  of  the  Good-News  page  on  "Be  ye  doers 
of  the  word,"  which  I  suspected  Peter  wrote  because 
it  was  so  rational  and  ethical,  but  he  did  not  legiti 
mize  the  thing  with  his  signature. 

Meanwhile  I  was  resolved  that  Mr.  Quick  should 
not  lack  for  the  soothing  copy  I  thought  the  people 
needed.  You  may  say  that  I  entered  the  ministry 
secretly,  with  none  of  the  brethren  to  lead  me  in 
prayer,  and  no  choir  to  sing,  beyond  the  tune  of  my 
own  memories.  I  worked  my  recollections  to  the  last 
little  decimal  of  a  tale.  Finally  I  worked  out,  and 
had  to  begin  on  the  secret  prayers  and  deeds  of  my 
own  life.  Here  I  discovered  an  inexhaustible  supply 
of  secret  matter.  It  is  astonishing  how  much  we 
have  lived  and  suffered  and  believed  and  hoped  when 


MY    SON  205 

we  have  been  compelled  to  live  better  than  we  really 
are. 

And  every  Sunday  my  little  stories  filled  most  of 
this  page.  Peter  said  the  only  fault  he  had  to  find 
was  with  the  editor.  He  said  Mr.  Quick  strutted 
and  aired  himself  like  a  hypocrite  about  his  Good- 
News  feature.  He  said  the  man  was  positively  in 
sufferable  he  was  so  boastful  about  how  easy  he 
found  it  to  get  more  copy  than  he  could  publish. 
Several  of  the  most  prominent  ministers  in  town  had 
their  contributions  returned,  and  so  on  and  so'forth. 

I  do  not  know  how  this  adventure  might  have 
ended  for  me,  but  for  a  circumstance  characteristic 
of  this  strictly  commercial  period  of  doing  every 
thing  by  advertising  and  collecting  a  fund  to  carry 
it  on. 

The  campaigns  of  various  religious  denominations 
for  funds,  totaling  many  millions  of  dollars,  were 
scarcely  over  when  the  rumble  of  the  much  greater 
Interchurch  World  Movement  smote  the  ears  of  all 
churches  in  all  nations.  At  last  the  Lord  God  was 
to  be  securely  established  in  the  hearts  of  all  men,  re 
gardless  of  creeds,  by  a  fund.  One  of  the  officials  of 
this  organization  passed  through  the  city  and  saw 
what  an  excellent  medium  the  Good-News  page  of 
our  leading  Sunday  paper  would  be  for  his  purposes. 
Thereafter  it  was  devoted  exclusively  to  the  propa 
ganda  of  latest  colossal  spiritual  enterprise  for  the 
saving  of  the  world. 


206  MY    SON 

The  eighteenth  amendment  went  into  effect  in 
July  of  this  year.  Peter  had  looked  forward  to  pro 
hibition  as  the  solution  of  many  problems.  He 
thought  liquor  fomented  strife  and  stirred  the  evil 
passions  of  all  classes.  We  all  do.  But  now  we  had 
a  shock.  The  first  effect  we  had  from  prohibition 
was  a  flare  of  indignation  among  many  worthy  citi 
zens  who  had  no  active  relation  with  evil  forces. 
Those  who  habitually  drank  to  the  point  of  drunken 
ness  had  little  to  say.  But  what  disturbed  Peter 
was  the  exaggerated  sense  many  members  had  of 
their  constitutional  rights  which  had  been  violated  by 
this  law.  He  was  obliged  to  stop  calling  on  Mr. 
Hobbs  to  lead  in  prayer  because,  though  he  had  long 
been  known  as  a  consistent  member  of  the  church 
and  had  the  gift  of  prayer,  he  was  violently  opposed 
to  prohibition.  Mr.  Steward,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
a  rabid  prohibitionist,  and  would  not  be  led  by 
Hobbs  in  prayer. 

Men  are  queer  people.  I  do  not  say  that  they  are 
so  deviously  queer  as  women,  but  their  queerness  is 
far  less  consistent  with  the  reputation  they  have  ac 
quired  for  being  reasonable.  They  are  by  nature  and 
inclination  lawmakers.  They  hang  one  another  for 
committing  murder.  A  man  is  punished  who  steals. 
He  is  sued  if  he  does  not  pay  his  debts.  He  is 
watched  in  business,  lest  his  profits  interfere  with 
another  man's  rights.  Any  one  of  them  will  get  him 
self  elected  to  the  legislature  so  that  he  may  pass 


MY   SON  207 

more  stringent  laws.  He  will  not  allow  you  to  ex 
pectorate  on  the  street,  even  if  you  have  a  bad  cold 
and  ought  not  to  do  it  in  your  own  pocket.  But  the 
moment  his  own  Government,  which  he  has  made 
and  which  represents  him,  undertakes  to  enforce  a 
law  against  one  of  his  physical  appetites  he  is  up 
in  arms.  It  makes  no  difference  which  appetite  it  is. 
If  an  ordinance  should  be  passed  against  the  drink 
ing  of  buttermilk  he  would  die  by  the  churn. 

As  for  intoxicating  beverages,  he  does  not  care 
for  the  stuff,  never  touches  it,  he  tells  you,  but  it  is 
the  principle  of  the  thing  to  which  he  objects.  It 
means  paternalism  in  Government,  and  paternalism 
means  the  overlording  of  law.  A  man  could  not  call 
his  soul  his  own!  This  was  Mr.  Hobbs'  argument. 
Presently  they  would  take  his  tobacco  and  coffee 
from  him !  He  belonged  to  the  great  minority.  He 
was  entitled  to  representation. 

I  thought  this  was  queer,  considering  how  earnestly 
he  favored  the  Government's  laying  a  chastening 
hand  upon  profiteers.  But  being  only  a  woman  may 
be  I  do  not  understand  paternalism.  I  feel  that  it 
is  a  figurative  term  in  politics  and  does  not  mean 
what  it  ought  to  mean. 

In  vain  Peter  reasoned  with  Hobbs,  reminding 
him  that  nearly  all  crime,  poverty  and  disease  may 
be  traced  directly  to  indulgence  in  strong  drink.  That 
was  not  the  point,  he  said.  This  was  a  free  country. 
Somebody  was  tampering  with  the  inalienable  rights 


208  MY    SON 

of  free  men  to  choose  whether  they  would  be  sober 
or  not  sober.  And  for  one  he  would  not  submit 
tamely  to  this  oppression.  There  were  more  ways 
of  killing  a  dog  than  choking  him  in  butter,  he  an 
nounced  darkly. 

The  primary  preludes  of  electing  officers  for  the 
city  government  came  on.  Hobbs  espoused  the  wet 
ticket.  Steward  was  the  raging  lion  of  the  dry 
forces.  They  met  in  joint  debate  and  accused  each 
other  in  public  places.  They  published  cards  villify- 
ing  each  other.  The  whole  congregation  of  Peter's 
church  took  sides.  Apparently  there  were  no  more 
good  Christian  people,  but  the  majority  of  those  who 
had  gone  under  this  name  were  overwhelmingly  for 
those  candidates  pledged  to  enforce  prohibition. 
Nevertheless,  every  man  on  the  wet  ticket  was  nomi 
nated. 

The  next  Sunday  Mr.  Hobbs  appeared,  after  sev 
eral  weeks'  absence,  at  the  Sabbath  services  as  usual, 
sitting  prominently,  looking  satisfied  and  mild,  like  a 
man  who  is  now  willing  to  take  the  gospel,  having 
carried  his  point  in  that  secular  matter  of  the  elec 
tion.  And  Mr.  Steward  transferred  his  membership 
to  another  church. 

I  do  not  know  which  is  the  best  time  to  hold  a  re 
vival.  If  you  have  it  before  a  political  campaign 
many  of  your  most  influential  members  backslide, 
boosting  their  candidate.  And  if  you  hold  it  after 
ward  the  mischief  has  already  been  done.  And 


MY   SON  209 

though  a  man  may  repent  of  everything  else  he  will 
not  repent  of  the  candidate  whom  he  helped  elect, 
no  matter  how  unworthy  he  may  be  to  hold  office. 
Peter  held  a  series  of  perfunctory  services  after  this 
political  upheaval,  much  as  you  hold  a  Chautauqua. 
Nothing  happened. 

If  I  take  a  bad  cold,  that  is  the  least  part  of  my 
trouble.  What  worries  me  much  more  is  how  I 
came  to  get  it.  I  recall  every  draft  that  came 
through  an  open  window.  I  remember  the  times  I 
have  risen  in  the  dead  hours  of  the  night,  thinly 
clad,  and  gone  upstairs  and  downstairs  to  make  sure 
that  I  really  did  lock  all  the  doors  before  retiring. 
I  consider  the  soles  of  my  shoes  and  try  to  remember 
whether  I  wore  my  rubbers  the  last  time  I  went  to 
prayer  meeting,  which  was  on  a  damp  evening.  But 
I  never  can  decide  which  imprudence  gave  me  the 
cold. 

I  was  in  the  same  doubt  during  the  latter  part  of 
this  summer,  about  a  marked  change  in  Peter.  He 
went  doggedly  on  with  his  work,  but  not  with  the 
enthusiasm  that  had  always  been  characteristic  of 
him.  He  had  lost  his  buoyancy,  which  in  my  opin 
ion  was  never  spiritual  but  due  to  the  hardy  con 
science  he  had,  a  good  conscience,  but  not  sensitive, 
and  never  introspective.  He  digested  his  deeds,  his 
prayers  and  his  sermons,  and  lived  on  them  as  you 
forget  the  food  that  sustains  you.  But  now  he  was 
not  doing  very  well.  He  was  moody.  He  practiced 


210  MY    SON 

silence  as  a  garrulous  man  practices  speech.  He  de 
voted  more  time  to  the  preparation  of  his  sermons 
and  preached  like  a  man  with  a  stone  hung  round 
his  neck. 

And  this  was  not  the  worst  of  it.  His  church 
was  more  than  half  empty.  This  had  never  hap 
pened  before,  even  in  the  warmest  weather,  when 
many  members  of  his  regular  congregation  were  away 
on  their  vacations,  because  he  had  a  sort  of  float 
ing  audience  from  the  outside  which  more  than  com 
pensated  in  members.  Now  these  cheerful  sinners 
were  not  there.  Some  popular  virtue  had  gone  out 
of  him  and  his  ministry. 

I  perceived  that  at  last  my  son  was  beginning  to 
be  uneasy,  like  a  man  who  fears  he  may  receive  his 
sight  soon  and  be  obliged  to  change  his  course.  I 
thought  he  was  losing  that  artless  faith  in  his  fellow- 
men  which  had  sustained  him  since  he  entered  the 
ministry,  and  which  is  not  justified.  He  was  at  last 
confounded  by  the  confusion  of  spirits  in  men  which 
drove  them  this  way  and  that  like  the  demoniacal 
possessions  mentioned  in  the  Scriptures.  The  moun 
tains  were  shaking  at  last,  and  I  trembled  for  my 
son,  for  I  could  not  be  sure  whether  he  would  yield 
to  a  purely  rational  defeat  or  turn  to  God  for  a  right 
understanding  of  his  ministry. 

I  experienced  once  more  the  old  burdened  feeling 
I  used  to  have  when  William  passed  through  a 
spiritual  crisis.  I  could  never  be  sure  he  would  re- 


MY   SON  211 

ceive  the  blessing  he  desired  of  his  Heavenly  Father, 
nor  what  would  happen  if  he  did  not  get  it.  But  I 
knew  he  would  not  go  on  preaching  the  gospel  with 
out  it.  Now  in  the  same  way  I  was  anxious  about 
what  was  going  on  in  the  heart  of  my  son.  I  desired 
above  all  things  that  he  should  remain  in  the  min 
istry,  and  I  knew  that  this  question  was  up  for  settle 
ment  in  his  mind.  He  was  an  honest  man.  He  was 
beginning  to  realize  what  I  had  known  from  the 
first — that  his  ministry  had  not  accomplished  its 
purpose.  That  he  should  understand  this  was  neces 
sary  if  he  ever  became  a  true  priest,  but  what  courage 
it  requires  in  spiritual  things  to  overcome  defeat  by 
faith !  I  did  a  sight  of  blind  praying  that  summer  to 
the  one  end  that  the  Lord  would  guide  Peter. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  best  of  men  choose  strange  bedfellows  when 
they  go  a-fishing.  I  never  could  understand  it. 
They  do  not  want  their  own  kind,  but  their  other 
kind  when  they  take  to  the  woods  and  streams.  A 
dignified  old  judge,  associated  in  everybody's  mind 
with  the  rigors  of  the  law,  will  pack  up  and  go  off 
with  a  doubtful  young  sportsman  who  has  no  dignity 
and  very  little  appreciation  of  law.  I  reckon  it  is 
on  the  same  principle  upon  which  Socrates  took  Alci- 
biades  with  him  when  he  wanted  a  complete  rest 
from  being  a  philosopher.  And  by  the  same  token  a 
good-natured  hardened  sinner  will  invite  his  pastor 
to  go  fishing  with  him,  though  he  has  endured  the 
chastening  rod  of  this  pastor's  severest  preaching 
since  the  last  time  they  were  off  fishing  together.  I 
reckon  this  is  also  on  the  same  principles  that  Alci- 
biades  preferred  the  companionship  of  an  intelligent 
man  like  Socrates  when  he  was  about  to  be  in  his 
cups. 

Anyway  in  August  of  this  year  Peter  went  off  on 
a  two  weeks'  camping  and  fishing  trip  with  Mr.  Hick- 
son,  who  is  not  a  good  man  but  a  good  fellow;  Mr. 
Trollop,  who  is  president  of  the  Add  and  Carry  Club, 

212 


MY   SON  213 

an  office  which  requires  no  sort  of  Christian  endeavor 
to  fill;  Judge  Bitterwater,  who  is  a  good  lawyer 
and  a  good  fisherman,  but  not  distinguished  for  any 
other  excellence;  and  the  Reverend  Mr.  Charles 
Stickney. 

Fathers  are  usually  ready  to  recognize  the  fact 
when  their  sons  are  grown  men,  and  even  anxious  to 
make  the  point.  But  mothers  know  very  well  that 
there  are  no  grown  sons  in  this  world,  and  so  long  as 
they  live  they  experience  faintly  and  futilely  those 
anxieties  they  felt  when  these  men-children  were  lit 
tle  boys,  lest  they  should  go  astray  or  fall  into  bad 
company.  I  can  never  get  over  that  feeling  about 
Peter.  I  was  not  concerned  about  the  secular  mem 
bers  of  this  fishing  party,  but  I  was  by  his  going 
off  with  Stickney  as  I  used  to  be  when  I  caught  him 
reading  one  of  the  Henty  books,  which  are  regarded 
as  harmless  because  they  are  innocuous. 

Brother  Stickney  is  the  pastor  of  the  next  larg 
est  Methodist  church  in  this  city.  He  is  a  modern 
preacher  as  contrasted  with  Peter,  who  was  by  way 
of  being  a  modern  thinker  in  the  pulpit.  That  is  to 
say,  Stickney  is  accomplished  in  the  art  of  entertain 
ing  his  congregation,  something  of  a  comedian,  and 
not  too  much  of  a  tragedian. 

Earlier  in  the  summer  while  he  was  conducting 
a  series  of  services  there  appeared  an  electric  sign 
above  the  door  of  his  church.  It  was  one  of  these 
variegated  on-and-off  signs.  It  would  flash  out, 


214  MY    SON 

"Jesus  is  Here !"  wink  back  into  darkness,  and  come 
again.  At  the  close  of  the  meeting  a  week  later  this 
thing  was  promptly  and  artlessly  removed. 

Peter  and  I  attended  these  services.  He  had  to 
sit  in  the  pulpit  and  I  sat  politely  in  one  of  the  front 
seats.  This  was  the  nearest  I  have  ever  been  to  at 
tending  a  vaudeville  performance.  It  looks  queer  to 
see  a  minister  of  the  gospel  standing  bench  legged 
before  his  congregation  with  the  elbows  of  these  legs 
crooked  outwardly  as  sharply  as  his  real  elbows,  play 
ing  the  title  role  of  some  scene  in  the  Bible.  I  do 
not  say  this  is  wrong,  but  it  is  very  difficult  to  fix 
your  mind  on  spiritual  things  while  it  is  going  on. 
My  feeling  is  that  if  you  are  born  with  the  instincts 
of  a  comedian,  and  the  Lord  calls  you  to  preach  in 
spite  of  this  defective  levity,  you  ought  to  curb  it. 
But  many  ministers  enliven  their  discourse  these  days 
with  light  dramatics  based  on  some  of  the  noblest 
scenes  in  the  Bible.  I  am  thankful  that  whatever 
Peter's  faults  have  been,  he  never  made  pulpit 
parodies  of  the  Lord's  gospel  to  please  his  con 
gregation. 

But  you  cannot  tell  what  men  talk  about  when 
they  go  a-fishing.  I  knew  that  Peter  was  anxious 
and  discouraged  about  his  ministry.  I  knew  he  had 
come  that  far  at  least,  and  I  did  hope  and  pray  he 
would  not  confide  too  much  of  his  doubts  and  fears  to 


MY   SON  215 

Brother  Stickney,  nor  be  tempted  to  adopt  Stick- 
ney's  methods. 

I  need  not  have  worried.  Peter  might  mistake  effi 
ciency  for  salvation,  but  he  would  never  mistake  buf 
foonery  for  gospel  truth.  He  had  an  honest  mind 
and  a  level  head.  He  used  his  legs  to  stand  on,  not 
to  gesture  with. 

I  spent  the  time  while  Peter  was  away,  on  the  old 
Redwine  circuit  with  Maggie  Fleming.  I  remember 
the  night,  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  when  William 
received  Maggie  into  the  church  and  the  very  way 
she  looked  then — a  little  girl  in  a  white  dress  which 
was  a  trifle  smaller  than  she  was,  wearing  her  shoes 
and  stockings  as  if  these  were  her  sad  and  painful 
Sunday  morals,  not  to  be  endured  on  other  days.  I 
can  see  the  faint  radiance  of  the  candlelight  on  her 
fair  hair,  which  stood  out  fine  and  straight  from  her 
small  head  as  if  this  was  no  time  for  hair  to  lie  down 
and  be  at  peace.  Something  was  happening !  I  can 
see  the  drops  of  baptismal  water  fall  and  glisten  on 
this  head,  bowed  so  low  before  the  altar,  and  Maggie, 
drawn  down  in  her  terrified  humility  to  a  mere  spot 
of  whiteness  with  her  childish  face  hidden  in  her 
little  brown  hands.  And  William  standing  young 
and  tall  above  her  saying  his  tremendous  church 
prayer  over  this  little  mite : 

"Almighty  God,  we  thank  thee  for  founding  thy 
church,  and  promising  that  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail  against  it.  ...  We  especially  praise  thy 


216  MY    SON 

name  for  enabling  this,  thy  servant" — meaning 
Maggie ! — "to  avouch  the  Lord  to  be  her  God.  Help 
her  to  perform  the  promise  and  vow  which  she  has 
made,  to  renounce  the  devil,  the  world  and  the  flesh; 
to  believe  the  record  which  thou  hast  given  to  thy 
Son,  and  to  walk  in  all  thy  commandments  and  ordi 
nances  blameless  to  the  end  of  her  life." 

The  solemn  and  binding  words  of  this  prayer  went 
on  rumbling  and  thundering  over  Maggie's  head 
down  to  the  last  Amen.  Then  she  arose  with  the 
drops  of  water  still  clinging  to  her  hair,  and  started 
on  that  long  journey  of  walking  blameless  to  the  end 
of  her  life.  I  doubt  if  anybody  can  do  it  except  in 
the  sight  of  the  Lord,  who  no  doubt  is  not  so  critical 
of  us  as  we  are  of  one  another. 

Maggie  was  a  little  child  then,  and  I  was  a  grown 
woman.  But  now  there  is  not  much  difference  in  our 
ages  according  to  our  experiences  along  the  way  we 
have  come.  Every  year  I  go  up  there  to  rest  in  her 
house  because  we  know  the  same  things  by  heart  and 
can  talk  about  them  as  a  nun  tells  her  beads,  one 
memory  at  a  time,  old  songs  that  we  used  to  sing,  old 
saints  that  we  used  to  know. 

But  there  is  one  difference  between  us:  Maggie, 
who  has  brought  up  a  family  and  seen  her  children 
married,  and  who  has  been  a  widow  for  many  years, 
and  been  obliged  to  meet  her  world  face  to  face, 
knows  so  much  less  than  I  do  of  the  evil  in  the  world. 
I  do  not  tell  her.  Nothing  would  make  her  believe 


MY   SON  217 

it.  This  is  indeed  to  be  blameless.  Sometimes  it 
has  occurred  to  me  that  if  I  was  as  good  a  woman  as 
we  are  commanded  to  be  in  his  name,  I  should  know 
less  than  I  do  about  what  is  wrong  with  everybody. 
But  maybe  the  Lord  will  know  how  to  make  allow 
ances  in  his  tender  mercies,  for  a  woman  who  has 
been  called  in  her  old  age  to  be  the  mother  of  a  fash 
ionable  city  preacher  and  who  was  never  before 
accustomed  to  the  ways  of  the  world,  which,  in 
spite  of  Maggie's  innocent  faith,  are  not  religious 
ways. 

I  attended  services  at  Red  wine  Church  on  Sun 
day.  The  same  old  church,  a  little  more  weather- 
beaten  outside,  a  darker  richer  brown  within,  but  no 
sign  needed  above  the  door  to  announce  the  pres 
ence  of  the  Lord.  The  pastor  was  an  old  circuit 
rider,  on  his  last  legs  in  the  itinerancy.  But  you  could 
tell  by  the  lean  gospel  strength  of  his  countenance, 
by  his  fine  beak  of  a  nose  and  the  eagle  clearness  of 
his  eye  that  he  had  been  a  fighting  preacher  in  his 
day  and  had  wielded  the  doctrines  of  his  church  with 
that  ancient  effectiveness  attributed  to  another  man 
of  faith  who  achieved  such  astonishing  execution 
among  his  enemies  with  the  jaw  bone  of  an  ass.  But 
like  most  preachers  of  the  elder  militant  order  he 
was  simmering  down  now  to  just  the  sweetness  of 
the  word.  He  preached  on  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
nothing  new,  and  with  no  wisdom  of  words,  but  he 
took  it  here  and  there  from  the  Scriptures,  merely 


218  MY    SON 

feeding  his  lambs,  so  to  speak,  not  arguing  with  them 
or  urging  them  to  believe.  Their  faith  it  appeared 
had  been  confirmed  long  ago. 

From  the  window  where  I  sat  in  the  church  I  could 
see  the  stone  above  William's  grave.  It  had  begun 
to  lean  a  little.  I  went  back  the  next  day.  and  had  it 
set  up  straight.  I  usually  spend  a  good  deal  of  my 
time  in  this  churchyard  when  I  am  visiting  Maggie. 
Most  of  the  people  to  whom  William  preached  the 
first  year  after  we  were  married  are  buried  there 
now,  the  good  ones  and  the  bad  ones  side  by  side.  I 
doubt  if  it  matters  much  when  we  have  slipped  down 
into  the  common  dust,  whose  dust  this  used  to  be  that 
lies  nearest  our  own.  The  differences  that  living 
made  between  us  are  past,  and  what  is  left  of  us 
comes  up  kind  and  kin  to  the  grass  at  last. 

I  felt  very  quiet  about  myself  in  this  place.  A 
hundred  miles  distant  the  life  of  the  turgid  city, 
from  which  I  had  come,  still  seethed.  There  were  the 
crowds  and  crowds  of  people  hurrying  and  knotting 
and  snarling  like  a  hank  of  human  threads  that  no 
body  knows  how  to  unwind.  But  in  the  shadow  of 
this  old  church  with  only  the  epitaphs  of  so  many 
men  and  women  whom  I  had  known  to  keep  me  com 
pany,  and  with  the  little  seed  plumes  of  the  grass 
above  their  graves  bending  in  the  soft  summer  wind, 
this  city,  these  people  and  the  fever  of  their  strange 
disorders  seemed  infinitely  removed  and  unimpor 
tant,  like  little  moments  of  time  you  waste  when  you 


MY   SON  219 

have  been  in  a  great  hurry  to  do  something.  It  will 
be  done,  that  something.  But  you  will  not  do  it. 
You  will  have  become  a  part  of  this  peace  and  this 
silence  long  before  these  people  find  the  way  and 
catch  step  with  the  march  of  stars  to  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

I  could  not  worry  enough  in  this  quiet  place  even 
to  pray  for  Peter,  who  had  been  constantly  on  my 
heart  of  late.  An  assurance  came  to  me  as  clear  as  a 
voice  which  speaks,  that  all  would  be  well  with  my 
son.  I  should  live  to  see  him  know  the  truth  and 
suffer  for  it.  I  should  see  him  broken  by  the  world 
and  established  in  the  Lord.  Then  I  found  myself 
weeping  for  Peter,  thinking  of  what  he  must  endure, 
grieving  for  that  life  of  a  man  and  a  man's  hopes 
which  he  must  yield  in  exchange  for  this  terrible 
peace. 

I  reckon  one  reason  why  the  Lord  does  not  frighten 
us  too  often  with  an  answer  to  prayer  is  because  it 
requires  real  courage  to  face  one  when  we  are  put 
to  the  test.  Maybe  this  is  why  he  spares  us  and  goes 
on  attending  to  our  needs  without  making  us  quake 
beforehand  by  letting  us  know  what  we  must  pay  in 
pain  and  sacrifice. 

I  went  back  to  the  city  the  last  week  in  August. 
Peter  returned  the  next  day  on  the  late  evening  train, 
lean  and  tanned.  But  he  did  not  look  like  a  man 
who  had  been  off  on  a  fishing  frolic.  He  had  noth- 


220  MY    SON 

ing  to  tell  of  his  exploits  or  of  his  comradeships.  To 
all  my  questions  he  returned  brief  answers  as  if 
speech  was  an  effort.  Yes,  he  had  been  very  well. 
Yes,  he  understood  that  the  fishing  was  good,  but 
he  had  not  fished.  He  had  spent  most  of  his 
time  tramping.  Mountain  country,  miles  of  for 
est,  no  roads,  not  even  a  trail  to  follow  when  you 
were  far  enough  inside.  He  had  been  lost  several 
times. 

"It  was  like  finding  myself,"  he  added,  catch 
ing  my  eye  merely  in  passing  to  his  own  next 
thought. 

He  wanted  to  know  if  I  had  ever  experienced  the 
strange  animation  there  is  in  the  silence  of  a  deep 
wood.  He  supposed  not,  he  added,  no  doubt  refer 
ring  to  my  timid  domestic  gender.  It  was  confiden 
tial  and  personal,  that  silence.  I  told  him  I  liked 
one  shade  tree,  or  maybe  two,  as  much  as  anybody, 
but  that  nothing  but  trees  depressed  me,  just  as  I 
should  feel  lonesome  and  diminished  in  a  com 
pany  of  awfully  great  men  and  with  no  other  ladies 
present. 

Sometimes  when  I  said  a  quick  foolish  feminine 
thing  like  this  Peter  would  laugh.  But  now  he  did 
not  even  smile,  and  I  perceived  that  he  had  not  been 
listening.  I  began  to  regard  my  son  with  the  atten 
tion  you  give  a  sick  person  when  you  do  not  know 
what  ails  him.  Peter  was  not  a  poet  nor  a  mystic. 
I  never  thought  he  was  much  of  a  philosopher, 


MY   SON  221 

though  he  was  to  my  mind  unfortunately  erudite  in 
the  philosophies  of  other  men.  Therefore  I  thought 
it  was  queer  that  he  had  not  fished  and  shared  the 
life  of  the  camp  instead  of  musing  round  alone  in 
the  woods. 

He  leaned  back  in  his  chair,  clasped  his  hands  over 
his  head  and  passed  into  a  coma  of  silence.  I  went 
on  talking  of  my  visit  to  Maggie  Fleming,  giving  him 
the  news  of  Redwine  Church — who  had  married, 
who  had  died  and  how  many  had  been  born  again 
during  the  revival  they  held  this  year.  Presently  he 
interrupted  me.  He  said  he  thought  he  would  go 
up  and  try  to  get  some  sleep,  as  if  the  getting  of  sleep 
had  become  a  difficult  business.  I  noticed  this  be 
cause  Peter  has  always  been  what  you  may  call  an 
enthusiastic  sleeper. 

An  hour  later  when  I  went  upstairs  there  was  a  line 
of  light  beneath  the  door  of  his  room,  and  several 
times  during  the  night  I  heard  him  stirring  about. 
The  next  morning  he  was  in  his  study  when  I  came 
downstairs,  though  the  early  bird  of  him  was  not 
in  the  habit  of  showing  up  before  breakfast.  I  sup 
posed  he  was  pressed  for  time  to  prepare  his  sermon 
for  the  following  Sunday,  as  this  would  be  prayer- 
meeting  night.  But  he  did  not  conduct  this  prayer 
meeting.  Then  it  developed  that  he  would  not 
preach  on  Sunday.  He  had  invited  another  minister 
to  fill  his  appointment. 

I  do  not  know  how  it  may  be  with  other  Christians, 


222  MY    SON 

but  with  me  it  has  always  been  difficult  to  keep  that 
assurance  won  in  answer  to  prayer.  It  will  pass  from 
me  when  I  need  it  most,  and  I  am  obliged  to  get  down 
on  my  knees  and  pray  forit  again.  So  now  the  sense 
of  security  I  had  about  Peter  that  day  in  the  Red- 
wine  churchyard  was  gone.  I  began  to  be  anxious 
about  him  again.  His  failure  to  preach  meant  some 
thing.  I  wanted  to  know  if*  he  had  a  sore  throat. 
Many  preachers  suffer  from  this  ailment.  William 
frequently  did,  especially  if  he  indulged  too  often  in 
the  singing  of  his  favorite  hymns.  And  he  could 
never  resist  certain  tunes  like  this  one,  which  ap 
pealed  to  his  shepherd  spirit : 

There  were  ninety  and  nine  that  safely  lay 
In  the  shelter  of  the  fold. 

When  he  reached  the  line  picturing  the  one  sheep 
that  had  gone  astray — Away  on  the  mountains  wild 
and  bare — he  invariably  keened  his  voice  to  such  a 
pitch  of  vocal  anguish  that  I  always  had  to  make 
him  gargle  something  for  his  throat  when  he  came 
home. 

But  Peter  declared  irritably  that  nothing  ailed 
him,  implying  that  all  he  desired  in  the  world  was  to 
be  left  alone,  which  is  the  state  of  a  preacher  who  is 
not  well  off  with  his  God. 

He  spent  every  day  and  the  most  of  every  night  in 
his  study.  This  study  was  no  longer  the  orderly 


MY    SON  223 

place  of  a  methodical  student.  It  was  a  scene  of  the 
wildest  confusion,  as  if  the  man  in  it  had  been  search 
ing  for  something  he  could  not  find.  The  books  were 
disarranged  on  the  shelves,  piled  on  the  floor,  dis 
carded  in  corners  as  if  the  hand  that  flung  them  there 
had  disavowed  them.  Some  of  his  favorite  authors 
on  the  moral  law  had  contributed  volumes  to  this 
disheveled  pile.  But  Kitto's  Commentaries  stood 
gray  and  undisturbed  on  the  top  shelf  along  with 
William's  other  books.  I  kept  my  eye  on  this  study, 
finding  in  it  the  only  news  I  had  of  my  son.  He  was 
not  doing  any  work  that  I  could  see  with  the  naked 
eye,  but  one  morning  when  I  slipped  in  there  for  a 
moment  while  he  was  out  I  found  a  long  page  filled 
with  references  to  texts  and  passages  in  the  Scrip 
tures. 

I  looked  up  a  few  of  these  and  found  that  they 
had  to  do  with  prophecies,  the  Holy  Spirit,  and 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Savior  of  men.  Peter 
always  seemed  to  sidestep  the  doctrine  of  his  Lord's 
divinity  in  his  sermons,  which  no  preacher  can  do 
and  see  the  fruits  of  the  word  in  the  lives  of  his  peo 
ple.  I  do  not  know  what  laws  of  rationalism  must 
be  violated  in  order  to  believe  in  the  divinity  of  the 
Son  of  God,  but  I  do  know  this  is  essential  to  be 
lieve.  Maybe  if  I  had  acquired  Peter's  learning  and 
had  developed  my  logical  faculties  at  the  expense 
of  my  spiritual  instincts,  this  would  not  have  been 
so  easy  to  believe.  I  reckon  intellectual  egotism  has 


224  MY    SON 

kept  many  a  smart  man  out  of  a  prominent  place  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

I  felt  the  old  anguish  of  suspense  as  I  withdrew 
softly  from  Peter's  study  that  morning,  as  I  used 
to  feel  it  about  William  when  he  was  in  his  wrest 
ling-Jacob  mood.  And  I  experienced  a  strange  sense 
of  guilt  toward  Peter.  If  he  had  been  more  like 
his  father,  not  so  much  my  son,  if  he  had  not  in 
herited  from  me  some  mettle  of  the  spirit,  more  of 
this  world  than  that  other  world,  I  should  not  have 
been  so  anxious.  As  it  was  I  did  not  know  what 
would  happen.  And  when  you  do  not  know  that, 
something  you  are  not  expecting  at  all  usually  hap 
pens  before  you  can  turn  round  and  say,  "Lord,  have 
mercy !" 

On  the  afternoon  of  this  same  day,  which  was 
Saturday,  Mrs.  Woodberry  sent  for  me.  She  is  a 
widow  and  a  member  of  Peter's  church.  During  the 
influenza  epidemic  of  the  previous  winter  she  had 
lost  her  daughter,  Arwin,  a  splendid  young  woman 
and  her  only  child.  She  was  one  of  those  courageous, 
eminently  sane  women  who  can  digest  a  sorrow  like 
this  and  go  on  living  without  acquiring  the  habit  of 
grief  so  depressing  to  other  people.  She  had  recog 
nized  the  fact  which  we  all  discover,  that  there  is  a 
conspiracy  among  the  living  against  the  dead,  to  the 
end  that  these  shall  remain  buried  out  of  mind,  and 
not  exploited  to  win  that  royalty  of  sympathy  which 


MY    SON  225 

those  who  are  bereaved  continually  covet  long  after 
they  cease  to  hope  for  it. 

Months  had  passed  now  since  I  had  heard  Mrs. 
Woodberry  mention  Arwin.  And  I  was  the  more 
astonished  therefore  to  find  her  in  a  terrible  state 
when  I  came  in.  She  was  upstairs  in  her  bedroom, 
laid  out  of  her  own  accord,  as  if  she  had  just  died  of 
horror,  but  was  still  alive. 

"What  has  happened*?"  I  exclaimed. 

"Read  it,"  she  whispered,  making  a  faint  gesture 
at  something  on  the  floor. 

Then  I  saw  a  letter  lying  open  with  a  bit  of  yel 
low  paper  folded  in  it. 

I  reached  for  it,  put  on  my  glasses  and  looked  first 
at  the  signature.  The  name  did  not  set  well  with  me. 
It  was  signed  "Isobel." 

"Isobel  ?"  I  repeated,  glancing  at  Mrs.  Woodberry 
inquiringly,  meaning  "Which  Isobel?" 

"Sangster.  She  was  in  school  with  Arwin  years 
ago,"  she  explained  faintly. 

It  was  no  more  than  a  note  saying  with  consider 
able  affection  that  she,  Isobel,  had  not  had  the  cour 
age  to  intrude  upon  dear  Mrs.  Woodberry's  grief 
since  poor  Arwin's  death  until  now,  when  she  could 
offer  her  the  immeasurable  consolation  of  a  message 
from  Arwin,  which  she  had  herself  received  through 
the  medium  of  automatic  writing.  She  inclosed  the 
message  exactly  as  she  had  taken  it. 


226  MY    SON 

"What  foolishness  is  this*?"  I  exclaimed  indig 
nantly. 

"You  have  not  read  the  message,"  she  said. 

The  writing  on  the  yellow  paper  was  a  clever 
forgery  of  Arwin  Woodberry's  own  hand. 

"Mother  is  not  to  worry,"  I  read.  "I  am  much 
better  and  very  happy." 

"How  will  she  know  this  message  is  from  you*?" — 
in  Isobel's  own  handwriting. 

"She  will  find  the  papers  she  has  been  looking  for 
on  the  shelf  of  the  closet  in  my  room,"  was  the  an 
swer. 

I  folded  the  paper  and  stared  at  Mrs.  Woodberry. 
Her  lips  were  trembling,  tears  lay  upon  her  cheeks. 

"You  do  not  understand!"  she  sobbed. 

"No!"  I  admitted  coldly. 

"Those  papers,"  she  said;  "no  one  knew  of  them 
'but  Arwin  and  myself.  She  had  them.  Since  her 
death  I  have  looked  for  them  everywhere.  To-day 
I  found  them  on  the  shelf  in  that  closet." 

I  have  never  doubted  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  mind  reading.  Nobody  can,  who  has  a  mind  with 
the  telepathic  antennse  of  their  emotional  natures 
sufficiently  developed,  any  more  than  one  is  surprised 
to  see  a  blind  bug  feel  its  way  by  the  same  method. 
But  it  is  a  bug.  I  thought  Isobel  Sangster  was  sin 
ister  enough  to  have  practiced  that  sly  degeneracy 
on  this  poor  woman.  In  her  subconscious  mind — 
the  door  of  which  is  always  open  to  these  spiritist 


MY    SON  227 

bugs! — Mrs.  Woodberry  had  certainly  canvassed 
the  shelf  in  this  closet  along  with  every  other  pos 
sible  place  in  the  house  where  these  papers  could  be 
found. 

I  tried  to  explain  this  to  her. 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  "I  have  thought  of  that. 
Some  one  has  been  sending  me  literature  on  psychic 
phenomena,  and  I  have  read  Sir  Ole  Lost's  books. 
One  keeps  going  round  in  a  circle  trying  to  pierce  the 
awful  silence  love  leaves  when  it  is  gone." 

She  paused,  her  lips  quivering. 

"You  cannot  know  how  strong  the  temptation  is — 
to — to  believe  a  thing  like  that,"  she  murmured, 
glancing  at  the  yellow  paper  which  I  still  held  in 
the  tips  of  my  fingers. 

"I  should  think  Arwin  would  have  communicated 
directly  with  you,"  I  suggested  indignantly. 

You  must  not  think  I  do  not,  with  my  reason, 
know  all  that,"  she  answered.  "But  they  tempt  us, 
these  people,  when  we  are  weakest.  I  would  give 
anything,  everything,  my  very  life  gladly  to  know 
that  message  really  came — from  Arwin,"  she  sobbed. 

"Not  to  believe,  if  it  is  true,  is  to  deny  her  the  im 
measurable  consolation  of  her  thought  still  of  me. 
They  count  on  that,  these  spiritists.  They  take  their 
prey  from  among  the  desolate  like  me!"  she  con 
cluded. 

I  began  to  understand  the  outrage  that  had  been 
committed  upon  this  mother's  defenseless  heart.  The 


228  MY    SON 

devil,  dear  brethren,  is  usually  one  of  us,  not  so  often 
a  foreign  prince  of  darkness  as  we  suppose. 

I  said  what  I  could  to  restore  Mrs.  Woodberry's 
mind  on  a  proper  Christian  faith  in  immortality,  and 
went  home,  because  I  did  not  know  what  to  say  to 
her.  I  was  feeling  a  little  queer  and  creepy  up  and 
down  my  own  spine.  It  is  a  discomforting  experi 
ence  to  be  knocked  out  of  your  senses  down  into  your 
aboriginal  superstitions.  You  get  a  glimpse  of  where 
you  came  from. 

I  walked  home,  though  it  was  some  distance.  Pres 
ently  I  knew  I  was  coming  to,  as  we  say  when  some 
body  has  a  fit,  because  I  began  to  feel  my  temper 
rising,  which  is  always  a  good  sign  of  the  return  of 
your  normal  relation  to  yourself. 

I  hope  I  am  a  Christian  woman,  though  an  honest 
person  must  have  his  respectful-to-God  doubts  at 
times  about  that,  because  every  one  of  us  must  jerk 
a  commandment  out  of  place  now  and  then  in  the 
mere  business  of  living  with  his  fellow  man.  And 
we  may  be  obliged  sometimes  to  turn  the  corner  of  a 
beatitude  with  considerable  shrewdness,  or  subject  an 
acquisitive  neighbor  to  the  temptation  of  taking  an 
unchristian  advantage  of  us.  There  have  been 
moments  when  I  have  had  at  least  a  vision  of  holi 
ness,  but  I  have  my  suspicions  of  any  man  who  can 
pass  clean  through  his  own  and  get  into  some 
body  else's  spirit,  until  he  can  actually  forge 
the  handwriting  of  an  immortal  soul.  When 


MY    SON  229 

it  comes  to  spiritism  I  am  a  firm  believer  in 
the  Monroe  Doctrine.  I  am  teetotally  against  all  en 
tangling  alliances  with  the  spirits  of  another  world. 
I  believe  it  is  the  most  damaging  and  disintegrating 
illusion  ever  offered  in  exchange  for  a  nobler  faith. 
And  though  there  may  be  such  people,  I  have  never 
known  one  single  up-and-doing  Christian  who  be 
lieved  in  spiritism.  You  must  be  a  sort  of  latitudi- 
narian  in  your  faith  and  abnormally  concerned  for 
your  own  crazy  comfort  before  you  can  accept  this 
vagary  as  a  personal  experience.  It  is  like  getting 
your  picture  on  a  bottle  of  patent  medicine  with  your 
testimonial  beneath  saying  how  it  almost  raised  you 
from  the  dead  and  made  you  skip  like  a  unicorn 
when  you  had  been  walking  on  crutches  for  years. 
Nobody  believes  you  or  buys  the  stuff  except  neuras 
thenics  who  might  be  as  easily  cured  with  peppermint 
water  if  it  was  so  recommended. 

Besides,  if  you  believe  in  spiritism  you  must  be 
lieve  in  immortality.  And  if  you  believe  in  im 
mortality  you  must  believe  in  a  further  state  of  exist 
ence  beyond  the  grave.  The  only  history  we  have  of 
this  state  is  the  Bible,  which  has  withstood  longer 
than  any  other  record  the  assaults  of  every  kind  of 
doubt.  Now  if  one  has  passed  out  of  his  dust  into 
this  kingdom  of  spirits,  his  corruption  has  put  on  in- 
corruption,  he  has  been  raised  a  spiritual  body,  and 
he  is  literally  a  native  of  that  place.  Therefore  I 
should  have  my  very  grave  doubts  of  any  spirit  with 


230  MY    SON 

whom  I  could  possibly  communicate.  I  should  know 
that  he  had  not  qualified  as  a  saint  and  citizen  of  that 
country,  therefore  not  a  proper  spirit  with  whom  to 
associate  and  take  into  my  confidence. 

No  man  can  have  faith  who  demands  evidence. 
And  for  some  reason  which  the  Lord  knows  is  good, 
it  is  faith,  not  evidence,  that  develops  the  spiritual 
attributes  we  need  for  eternal  life.  I  reckon  it  is  the 
wing  practice  of  the  spirit  we  get  while  we  are  still 
in  the  flesh.  I  would  rather  believe  what  I  feel  and 
cannot  prove  than  accept  the  word  of  a  new-fangled 
fortune  teller  about  immortality,  whose  character  in 
this  world  rarely  shows  enough  units  to  qualify  him 
for  these  communications  he  professes  to  receive 
from  another  world. 

My  notion  is  that  probably  we  shall  be  very  much 
engaged  in  psychical  research  in  that  world,  where 
there  will  be  a  good  deal  of  it  to  do  before  we  get  our 
records  straight.  But  it  is  no  legitimate  occupation 
to  carry  on  in  this  one.  Maybe  this  is  not  the  intelli 
gent  view  to  take,  but  it  is  safe,  and  I  never  cared 
much  about  being  intelligent  so  long  as  I  am  in  a 
position  to  fall  on  my  knees  and  say,  "Lord,  I  be 
lieve  !"  That  is  going  a  long  sight  further  than  the 
cerebral  portion  of  your  anatomy  will  ever  take  you. 
I  never  knew  of  any  kind  of  eavesdropping  that  was 
not  dishonorable,  even  if  you  did  not  hear  anything. 
This  is  what  psychical  research  is  close  kin  to,  eaves 
dropping  the  dead,  and  telling  tales  on  them  to  their 


MY    SON  231 

living  friends  and  relatives.  If  it  is  not  the  meanest 
kind  of  mischief  it  is  bound  to  be  the  silliest  sort  of 
folly,  and  the  most  dangerous  in  this  world,  because 
if  it  is  accepted  in  good  faith  it  destroys  real  faith 
with  fallacious  evidence,  which  is  not  evidence  at  all, 
but  superstition. 

There  is  a  silence  that  cannot  be  broken,  like  the 
distances  between  stars  that  cannot  be  passed.  Let 
somebody  find  out  the  time  of  day  on  Mars,  let  him 
skeet  out  into  space  and  bring  back  one  single  green 
leaf  from  the  nearest  planet.  That  should  be  easy 
compared  to  getting  messages  from  immortal  spirits. 
There  may  be  some  of  us  who  have  lived  a  long  time 
according  to  the  spirit  rappings  on  our  own  con 
science  who  will  be  tempted  to  risk  a  seance  with 
Moses  or  Enoch  or  some  prophet  whom  the  Scrip 
tures  recommended. 

As  a  Christian  woman  I  have  my  prides,  of  which 
I  have  never  been  chastened.  One  of  them  is  that 
I  may  be  permitted  to  turn  up  my  spiritual  nose  in 
Paradise  at  some  old  diminished  philosopher,  whose 
writings  were  beyond  my  comprehension  in  this  pres 
ent  world.  Another  is  that  I  may  witness  the  severe 
operation  by  which  these  spiritists  have  a  real  sense 
of  immortality  grafted  to  their  stunted  faculties. 

I  was  thinking  along  these  lines,  which  is  a  sort 
of  psychic  way  I  have  of  spanking  people  whose  way 
of  thinking  and  acting  does  not  agree  with  my 
temper,  as  I  came  home  from  this  visit  to  Mrs. 


232  MY    SON 

Woodberry.    And  I  was  feeling  calmer  by  the  time 
I  reached  the  door  of  my  own  house. 

When  I  entered  the  hall  Peter  was  ushering  two 
men  out  of  his  study,  politely,  but  with  that  finicky- 
ness  of  manner  the  best  of  men  have  when  it  is  their 
duty  to  make  some  kind  of  moral  distinction.  One 
of  these  strangers  was  an  elder  person,  tall,  with  a 
lean  face  and  long  musical-looking  hair,  the  kind 
worn  by  band  masters.  The  other  was  a  short, 
stodgy  man,  young,  but  remarkably  bald  as  to  his 
head.  He  was  dressed  in  the  fashion  of  many  men 
whom  we  see  in  the  streets,  but  whom  we  never 
meet.  He  seemed  to  glow  from  his  cravat  to  his 
spats. 

I  went  upstairs  to  take  off  my  bonnet  and  to  change 
my  shoes  to  a  more  peaceful  pair  of  slippers.  When 
I  came  down  Peter  had  returned  to  his  study.  I 
paused  before  the  closed  door  and  considered  whether 
I  should  go  in.  One  cannot  help  being  curious  about 
strangers  in  her  own  house.  And  when  my  curiosity 
is  aroused  I  may  as  well  yield  to  it  at  once  and 
avoid  the  struggle.  So  I  opened  the  door  and 
went  in. 

Peter  stood  before  the  window  with  his  hands 
clasped  behind  him.  He  glanced  back  at  me,  mean 
ing  that  I  was  interrupting  him.  But  I  sat  down. 
A  man  always  wants  his  mother  even  if  he  does  not 
want  her  that  minute.  I  frequently  comfort  myself 


MY    SON  233 

with  this  assurance  when  Peter  indicates  by  a  little 
movement,  or  by  the  whelping  up  of  the  frowns 
on  his  forehead,  that  he  finds  my  presence  a  little 
trying. 

"Who  were  your  visitors,  my  son*?"  I  asked 
amiably. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,  mother,"  he  answered.  "A 
couple  of  strolling  rascals,  most  likely." 

He  came  back  and  sat  down  before  his  desk,  but 
I  kept  my  eyes  raised  to  him  inquiringly. 

"The  younger  one  is  a  shoe  salesman,"  he  went  on, 
"and  claims  to  be  a  medium  for  the  spiritists.  The 
other  is  his  manager.  A  medium  must  have  a  man 
ager,  you  know !" 

It  never  rains  but  it  pours,  I  thought,  recalling 
the  scene  I  had  just  passed  through  with  Mrs.  Wood- 
berry. 

"What  did  they  want?"  I  asked. 

"They  came  to  invite  me  to  the  meetings  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,"  he  answered. 
"There  is  one  here,  it  seems,"  he  went  on.  "They 
showed  me  a  list  of  those  who  belong  to  it.  You 
would  be  surprised.  Practically  all  of  them  promi 
nent  people,  men  as  well  as  women.  Many  of  them 
members  of  my  church." 

I  was  not  surprised.  Sedative  cults  appeal  to  peo 
ple  of  this  class  as  certain  drugs  do  to  other  people. 
It  is  simply  a  more  enterprising  and  intellectually 
epicurean  way  of  indulging  a  jaded  appetite  with 


234,  MY    SON 

illusions,  frequently  by  proxy  and  for  the  price  they 
pay  the  accomplished  medium.  It  is  a  more  ad 
venturous  form  of  the  old  art  of  fortune  telling. 
Your  honest  clodhopping  mountaineer  climbs  his 
own  mountain  because  he  must.  Upon  the  face  of  it 
lie  his  fields  and  his  way  up  and  down  in  the  daily 
business  of  living.  But  it  takes  the  tourist  with  no 
real  ambition  for  achievement  to  climb  the  Matter- 
horn,  a  useless  distinction.  These  spiritists  are  the 
same  kind  of  tourists. 

I  was  fumbling  along  with  some  such  reflection! 
as  these  when  Peter  glanced  at  me  and  said  dully; 
"Some  of  the  pastors  of  churches  in  this  city  are  at 
tending  these  spiritist  seances." 

I  returned  his  glance  accusingly.  What  I  meant 
was  that  this  was  the  rule  with  pastors  now,  to  follow 
their  people,  not  to  lead  them. 

"They  pointed  out  to  me  that  a  preacher  who  is 
not  interested  in  psychic  phenomena  is  behind  the 
times,"  he  went  on. 

"What  did  you  say  to  that?"  I  asked. 

"Nothing.  I  was  showing  them  to  the  door  when 
you  came  in,"  he  answered.  "The  Gleate  woman 
sent  them,"  he  added  after  a  pause. 

I  experienced  a  pang  of  satisfaction  at  this  defini 
tion  of  Isobel  Sangster.  I  told  him  of  the  effort  she 
was  making  to  convert  Mrs.  Woodberry  to  spiritism, 
the  monstrous  trick  she  had  played  on  her,  and  the 
condition  I  had  found  her  in  that  afternoon. 


MY   SON  235 

Peter  remained  silent  with  his  head  bowed  surlily. 
I  retorted  with  the  pressure  of  my  own  silence,  hop 
ing  he  would  say  something  of  what  was  in  his  mind. 
From  time  to  time  I  offered  a  remark.  I  gave  him 
my  opinion  of  spiritism.  Silence  is  a  form  of  hys 
teria  in  men,  as  laughter  and  tears  are  with  women. 
Peter  was  suffering  from  a  fit  of  dumb  hysterics.  It 
was  Saturday  night.  I  had  no  reason  to  believe  that 
he  had  made  any  preparation  for  his  service  the  next 
day  and  I  was  anxious,  lest  another  Sunday  should 
pass  with  him  out  of  his  pulpit. 

The  clock  struck  six.  He  glanced  up  at  it  as  if  he 
said,  "Thank  you!"  because  he  knows  I  never  can 
remain  seated  where  I  am  when  the  clock  strikes  six. 
I  must  always  go  out  and  perform  some  duty  con 
nected  with  this  hour  of  the  day. 

I  got  up  slowly  and  started  reluctantly  for  the 
door.  Dinner  would  be  served  presently,  I  told  him. 
He  replied  that  he  did  not  care  about  it,  that  he  was 
not  hungry. 

When  a  healthy  man  loses  his  appetite  it  is  serious. 
I  went  back  to  my  chair  and  sat  down  again. 

"Peter,"  I  began,  "men  and  women  are  born  credu 
lous.  It  is  the  strongest  instinct  they  have.  They 
must  believe  something  even  if  it  is  the  cynic's  stupid 
conviction  that  everything  is  wrong  and  mean  and 
contemptible,  or  the  rationalist's  limited  faith  in  just 
what  he  can  prove  like  a  little  sum  in  figures.  There 
is  no  such  being  as  a  man  without  faith.  Every  one 


236  MY    SON 

of  them  has  an  overwhelming  passion  for  believing. 
But  if  they  are  not  taught  faith  in  God  they  will  be 
lieve  in  something,  however  false  or  silly,  because 
they  must." 

"Oh,  mother,"  he  exclaimed  bitterly,  "it  is  not  this 
fad  of  spiritism  that  is  troubling  me.  Their  experi 
ments  are  as  childish  as  rubbing  a  black  cat  in  the 
dark  to  see  the  electric  sparks  fly  from  the  hair  when 
you  do  not  know  what  a  natural  thing  electricity  is. 
They  are  only  rubbing  one  another's  backs,  stirring 
up  the  common  animus  of  telepathy,  combining  it 
with  imagination  and  calling  it  psychic  phenomena!" 

I  was  relieved  by  this  answer.  But  if  he  was  not 
disturbed  about  the  advent  of  spiritism  in  his  church, 
what  else  had  happened,  I  wanted  to  know. 

"Nothing  has  happened,  mother,"  he  answered, 
"it  is  myself  that  is  giving  me  all  the  trouble.  What 
do  I  believe?  How  much"?  Where  do  I  stand  in 
times  like  these  as  a  minister4?  It  requires  courage 
to  preach  with  the  four  winds  of  the  world  blowing 
against  you !" 

"The  Lord  give  it  to  you,  my  son,"  I  said  and  went 
out. 

I  dined  alone  that  evening  and  retired  early  to 
bed,  but  not  to  sleep.  I  lay  for  a  long  time  feeling 
like  a  wordless  old  prayer  in  the  dark  for  my  son. 

At  last  I  heard  Peter  come  upstairs,  then  the  click 
of  the  switch  when  he  turned  out  the  light  in  his 
room,  which  I  had  left  on.  Then  the  measured 


MY   SON  237 

tread  of  his  feet  for  hours,  back  and  forth  across  the 
floor. 

I  read  something  once  about  the  "spiritual  isola 
tion  of  darkness."  There  is  such  a  thing.  As  a  rule 
you  do  your  best  deeds  in  the  daytime.  You  make 
your  reputation.  You  are  somebody  or  nobody 
among  men.  But  at  night  when  the  lights  are  out 
and  you  are  alone,  removed  in  consciousness  even 
from  resonance  of  all  other  human  life,  the  sense  you 
have  of  yourself  is  different.  You  meet  the  man  you 
really  are,  face  to  face,  in  this  mirror  of  darkness, 
no  longer  enhanced  or  diminished  by  the  adjectives 
of  other  men's  opinions.  At  the  moment  when  you 
think  you  are  about  to  fall  asleep,  the  witness  of  your 
own  spirit  comes  in,  sits  up  with  you  and  audits 
your  accounts  to  the  last  secret  deed  and  thought  you 
have  had  in  the  wrong  direction. 

Then  though  you  may  be  a  good  man  or  a  great 
one,  you  discover  that  you  are  in  a  state  of  spiritual 
insolvency  and  you  must  have  a  bout  with  your 
wrestling  angel  until  the  dawn,  to  square  things  up 
and  get  the  blessing  you  need.  I  reckon  this  was  the 
sort  of  spiritual  isolation  through  which  Peter  was 
passing  that  night.  He  was  at  last  face  to  face  with 
the  God  who  calls  men  to  preach  the  gospel,  not  to 
lecture  on  morals  and  the  mere  ethics  of  human  con 
duct. 

He  showed  the  ravages  of  the  struggle  the  next 
morning  when  he  came  down  to  breakfast.  He  was 


238  MY    SON 

pale  and  strangely  calm.  For  the  first  time  in  my  life 
I  felt  infinitely  removed  from  him.  He  was  differ 
ent.  I  was  late  getting  off  to  church  that  morning. 
When  I  arrived  they  were  already  singing  the  open 
ing  hymn,  which  was  really  a  hymn  with  a  hymn's 
tune,  not  an  aria  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  one  of 
Charles  Wesley's: 

Come,  Thou,  Almighty  King, 
Help  us  Thy  name  to  sing. 

I  paused  a  moment  outside  the  door  to  listen  and 
wonder,  because  there  was  a  roll  and  volume  to  the 
music  with  an  old  man's  groaning  bass  and  an  old 
woman's  high  treble  sticking  about  two  notes  above 
the  tune.  This  was  not  the  singing  of  any  church 
choir,  I  concluded,  and  hurried  in  to  see  what  was 
going  on. 

There  was  no  choir,  only  the  organist,  Peter  stand 
ing  in  the  pulpit  and  the  whole  congregation  singing. 
I  had  scarcely  reached  the  place  where  I  sit  in  this 
church  before  he  said,  "Let  us  pray !" 

And  now  a  queer  thing  happened.  I  have  never 
been  able  to  follow  Peter  when  he  leads  in  prayer, 
because  he  does  it  so  well,  with  such  studied  smooth 
ness  of  his  purely  earthly  periods  that  my  old  hob 
bled  spirit  cannot  keep  up  with  him.  But  this  was  the 
halt,  lame  and  blind  prayer  of  a  man  who  has  cast 
aside  the  vanity  of  fine  words,  and  I  found  myself 
stumbling  along  with  him,  a  little  shaken  and  tearful. 


MY    SON  239 

Peter  took  his  Old  Testament  lesson  from  the  first 
chapter  of  Habakkuk,  which  is  a  prayer  for  the  re 
vival  of  the  Lord's  work  among  his  people. 

There  is  a  fire  and  a  fleetness  about  the  verbs  of  a 
prophet  in  a  prayerful  mood  that  surpasses  the  imagi 
nation  of  ordinary  men. 

"Their  horses  also  are  swifter  than  the  leopards, 
and  are  more  fierce  than  the  evening  wolves,"  I  heard 
Peter  chanting  in  a  voice  that  rose  and  fell  like  a 
mournful  curse.  "And  their  horsemen  shall  spread 
themselves  and  their  horsemen  shall  come  from  far: 
they  shall  fly  as  the  eagle  that  hasteth  to  eat,"  he 
read,  and  it  seemed  to  me  I  saw  all  the  ruthless  furies 
of  our  times  riding  down  the  souls  of  these  people. 
"They  shall  come  all  for  violence:  their  faces  shall 
sup  up  as  the  east  wind,  and  they  shall  gather  the 
captivity  as  the  sand." 

I  cannot  tell  how  or  why,  but  suddenly  these  Scrip 
tures  fitted  the  secret  thoughts  and  fears  of  that  con 
gregation,  though  Peter  did  not  stop  to  interpret 
them  into  the  crueler  violences  of  our  own  day.  He 
turned  immediately  to  the  fourteenth  chapter  of 
John  and  read  "portion"  of  it,  as  William  used  to 
say,  and  took  the  sixth  verse  as  his  text:  "Jesus  saith 
unto  him,  I  am  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life:  no 
man  cometh  unto  the  Father,  but  by  me." 

In  the  old  days  I  formed  the  habit  of  easing  down 
after  William  took  his  text.  I  permitted  myself  to 
be  mulled  in  the  word,  merely  keeping  my  eyes  open 


240  MY    SON 

and  fixed  on  William  for  the  sake  of  appearances. 
But  Peter's  preaching  had  never  afforded  me  this 
somnambulent  peace  of  the  spirit.  I  always  had  to 
sit  up  on  the  pins  and  needles  of  my  mind  and  listen 
to  what  he  was  saying,  because  it  was  never  kin  to 
me,  and  kept  me  disturbed.  Now  suddenly  I  real 
ized  that  something  strangely  soothing  and  familiar 
was  going  on. 

Peter  was  bending  over  the  pulpit,  speaking  gently 
with  a  sort  of  tenderness  not  at  all  in  his  usual  tones, 
but  as  you  do  to  children  who  must  be  comforted. 
He  was  assuring  them  of  something  as  if  this  was  a 
matter  of  life,  not  death.  To  believe  this  settled 
everything,  not  that  Jesus  showed  the  way,  but  that 
he  is  the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life.  To  be  en 
compassed  in  the  security  of  his  life,  and  his  truth, 
was  to  know  God. 

If  you  are  not  a  preacher  you  cannot  preach  nor 
give  life  to  the  word.  So  I  cannot  interpret  that 
sermon.  It  was  made  of  all  the  simple  promises  that 
men  do  not  believe  now.  It  offered  those  rewards 
men  no  longer  crave  to  have.  And  yet  this  church 
was  changed  to  a  holy  place.  And  there  was  in  it 
the  stillness  of  hearts  that  listen.  Now  and  then  a 
sentence  fell  from  Peter's  lips  that  echoed  in  my  ears 
like  the  refrain  of  something  heard  years  and  years 
ago. 

There  was  the  usual  congregation,  people  whom 
I  had  seen  every  Sunday  for  nearly  a  year,  but  did 


MY    SON  241 

not  know.  Now  I  recognized  the  faces  of  these 
strangers  here  and  there  as  if  they  were  the  kindred 
of  my  heart,  elder  men  and  women  who  exchanged 
a  glance  as  if  they  said  "Amen !" 

I  took  out  my  handkerchief  and  wiped  the  tears 
from  my  eyes.  What  was  happening  to  me^  This 
was  Peter,  not  William,  saying  over  the  gifts  of  God 
to  his  people.  Then  suddenly  I  saw  that  Peter  was 
like  his  father.  Strange  that  I  had  never  seen  this 
resemblance  before.  The  same  expression,  aloof  and 
sad,  the  same  bemused  gesture  of  touching  his  brow. 
William  used  to  do  that!  Now  he  was  bringing 
the  sermon  to  a  close  with  a  tender  invocation  that 
they  should  believe,  and  love  one  another  and  fear 
not.  William  used  to  do  that!  And  now  we  were 
singing.  "How  firm  a  foundation — "  That  was  his 
father's  favorite  hymn.  The  music  of  it  rolled  and 
billowed  beneath  the  high  nave  of  this  church  as  if 
imprisoned  souls  had  been  released  in  these  great 
words. 

When  the  service  was  over  I  waited  for  Peter,  who 
always  came  down  to  greet  his  people,  receive  their 
compliments  and  bow  himself  handsomely  this  way 
and  that  down  the  aisle  to  the  door.  But  he  did  not 
come,  and  the  people  did  not  wait  for  him.  They 
were  going  quietly  away  like  men  and  women  who 
have  just  prayed  and  are  not  ready  to  laugh.  For 
a  moment  I  stood  alone  in  the  nearly  empty  church. 


242  MY    SON 

Then  I  saw  the  half -open  door  behind  the  altar  and 
knew  that  Peter  had  gone. 

On  Sunday  afternoons  I  sometimes  went  to  the 
attic  and  looked  over  William's  sermons  in  the  old 
tin  box,  not  to  read,  having  heard  them  so  many 
times,  but  just  to  take  them  out  and  put  them  back 
again  as  you  unfold  and  fold  precious  memories. 

I  went  up  there  this  Sunday  afternoon.  When  I 
came  to  the  top  of  the  stairs  I  saw  the  lid  of  the 
box  open,  and  one  of  the  packages  lying  unfolded 
in  the  chair  that  I  keep  to  sit  in  up  there. 

At  the  top  of  the  page  was  written  in  faded  script : 

"Jesus  saith  unto  him,  I  am  the  way,  the  truth, 
and  the  life:  no  man  cometh  unto  the  Father,  but 
by  me." 

William's  handwriting  grew  dimmer  before  the 
tears  in  my  eyes.  I  remembered  the  Sabbath  so  many 
years  ago  when  he  preached  this  sermon  for  the  first 
time.  Peter  had  taken  the  lift  of  a  sentence  here 
and  there  from  it  to  steady  his  desperate  courage  that 
morning.  They  were  all  marked  as  if  he  acknowl 
edged  a  debt  to  be  paid. 

I  was  sitting  in  the  parlor,  feeling  blessed  and 
peaceful  when  he  came  in  from  his  evening  service. 

There  are  wounds  for  those  who  triumph  as  well 
as  for  those  who  fail.  And  it  is  not  wise  to  touch 
them  when  they  are  freshly  made.  So  I  said 
nothing  to  my  son  about  what  had  happened  that 


\ 
MY    SON  243 

day.  Thus  for  a  time  there  was  silence  between  us. 
Then  I  caught  Peter  regarding  me  with  a  beam  in 
his  eye. 

"So  it  was  you,  mother,  who  wrote  the  copy  for 
the  Good-News  page?  I  might  have  known  it,"  he 
said,  smiling. 

"But  you  did  not  even  suspect  it,"  I  retorted,  still 
nettled  because  I  had  not  been  suspected. 

"The  very  good  can  rarely  write  so  well  about 
goodness,"  he  offered.  "I  found  the  clippings  of 
your  Good  News  in  father's  old  box  of  sermons,"  he 
explained.  "Father  had  the  sense  of  God,  as  other 
men  have  the  sense  of  things,"  he  went  on  after  a 
pause.  "I  quoted  from  his  sermon  on  the  same  text 
this  morning." 

"Yes,"  I  answered  gently. 

"You  recognized  the  passages?" 

"No,  not  in  the  way  you  mean,"  I  returned;  "but 
I  recognized  the  truth.  It  is  always  familiar." 

"Mother,  I  may  need  those  sermons  now,"  he 
said,  as  if  "now"  was  to  be  very  different  from  the 
past. 

"They  are  the  legacy  of  a  rich  man,  Peter,"  I 
answered,  "but  not  like  gold  that  can  be  squandered. 
The  sermons  in  that  box  reach  back  far  behind  your 
father's  day.  In  the  very  bottom  you  will  find  one 
preached  by  your  great  grandfather,  who  received 
one  vote  for  the  bishopric  at  the  General  Conference 
in  1870." 


244  MY    SON 

From  that  we  went  abroad  in  the  years  and  I  told 
him  of  this  line  of  preachers  from  which  he  hid 
sprung — the  lives  they  had  lived,  the  triumphs  they 
had  enjoyed,  always  poor  in  the  world,  always  rich 
in  God.  It  was  the  way  I  had  of  ordaining  Peter 
and  anointing  his  head  with  oil. 

History  is  usually  dull  because  it  is  a  record  of 
conditions,  institutions  and  deeds,  not  of  the  lives 
of  the  people  who  achieved  them.  Very  few  men 
inhabit  history,  because  historians  are  not  interpret 
ers  of  life  but  mere  recorders  of  facts,  the  calendar 
keepers  of  civilization.  And  the  reason  why  the 
characters  portrayed  in  fiction  are  doubtful  is  because 
it  requires  a  great  man  to  interpret  virtue,  while  any 
man  with  a  fatal  facility  of  expression  can  interpret 
vice.  And  the  reason  why  it  is  easier  to  dramatize 
a  scandal  or  a  comedy  is  because  Ichabod,  instead 
of  Isaiah,  writes  the  lines  and  the  monkey  phrases 
for  the  actors  and  the  comedians.  Only  a  great  artist 
can  paint  the  epic  scenes  of  our  common  life.  Even 
then  only  great  people  with  the  eyes  to  see  know 
what  is  in  the  picture.  It  is  not  that  the  people  want 
to  read  about  the  littleness  and  meannesses  of  men, 
nor  that  they  cannot  appreciate  the  drama  of  what 
is  good,  but  it  is  that  they  do  not  get  it. 

For  all  these  reasons  I  also  am  unable  to  set  down 
with  the  distinction  it  deserves  the  record  of  my 
son  from  this  time.  I  am  an  old  woman.  I  could 
never  learn  the  art  of  writing,  though  I  have  tried. 


MY   SON  245 

The  words  I  need  grew  up  long  ago  in  the  Scriptures 
and  in  the  best  poetry.  I  cannot  find  them,  nor  put 
them  together  again,  to  fit  this  new  life  of  my  son. 
But  if  I  could  do  it  it  would  be  something  to  tell — 
how  he  became  plain,  like  the  blessings  we  enjoy 
without  thankfulness,  and  made  himself  of  no  repu 
tation  in  a  world  where  his  honors  and  success  had 
been  assured.  From  this  day  he  never  enjoyed  the 
fame  of  a  popular  preacher.  His  ministry  drew  him 
quickly  out  of  sight  of  the  rewards  and  judgments 
of  men.  But  before  the  end  of  the  year  I  saw  with 
my  own  eyes  a  miracle  wrought  in  this  church. 

Peter  began  to  preach  from  the  Scriptures,  not 
from  his  own  mind  or  the  philosophies  of  other  men. 
He  preached  with  the  earnestness  of  a  man  who  be 
lieved  in  the  word  with  a  sort  of  anguish  for  the 
souls  of  men. 

One  day  a  reporter  called  after  the  service.  He 
said  he  supposed  Mr.  Thompson  knew  that  his 
preaching  was  attracting  a  great  deal  of  attention 
in  the  city.  Peter  said  "No."  Well,  it  was  quite 
sensational  in  fact,  the  reporter  informed  him,  and 
would  Mr.  Thompson  mind  furnishing  a  copy  of  his 
morning  discourse  for  the  paper*?  Peter  told  him 
that  he  had  no  copy.  He  had  got  most  of  it  from 
certain  passages  in  the  New  Testament.  What  about 
an  interview,  then1?  He  v/as  sure  Mr.  Thompson's 
views  on  the  problems  of  the  times  would  be  a  good 
feature  for  the  Sunday  edition  of  his  paper.  But 


246  MY    SON 

Peter  was  not  disposed  to  backbite  his  day  and  gen 
eration,  and  he  told  the  young  man  that  he  was  done 
with  all  problems  save  the  eternal  ones  of  repent 
ance,  faith  and  salvation.  The  answer  sounded  silly 
and  insincere  to  that  young  man.  He  went  away 
smiling  at  the  joke. 

I  doubt  if  I  could  ever  have  been  cured  of  a  com 
plaint  by  a  woman  doctor,  however  skillful  she 
might  be  in  the  practice  of  her  profession.  And  I  am 
certain  I  could  never  have  been  converted  under  the 
ministry  of  a  woman  preacher  even  if  she  spoke  with 
the  tongue  of  men  and  of  angels.  I  should  know 
them  both  too  well.  They  could  not  command  my 
confidence  or  my  imagination,  which  is  essential.  I 
should  know  that  this  doctor  had  a  back  that  was 
sister  to  my  back,  that  it  ached  morbidly  at  times, 
and  she  could  not  stop  it  from  aching  until  it  cleared 
up  of  its  own  accord !  Therefore  she  need  not  give 
herself  airs  about  my  back  and  offer  to  cure  it  with 
a  pill,  because  there  would  be  no  illusions  between 
us  upon  which  to  base  the  efficacy  of  that  pill. 
Whereas  if  your  physician  is  a  man  you  may  deceive 
him  about  what  is  really  the  trouble,  and  he  can  also 
deceive  you  into  thinking  he  is  deceived.  You  relax 
accordingly  and  his  nostrums  revive  you. 

By  the  same  token,  a  feminine-gendered  evangelist 
could  never  by  the  most  wrathful  and  searching 
preaching  convict  me  of  my  sins,  even  if  I  was  dead 
in  them  and  knew  it.  In  the  first  place,  her  voice 


MY   SON  247 

would  be  too  thin.  You  cannot  awaken  a  trespasser 
to  repentance  in  the  high  treble  tones  of  "Curfew 
shall  not  ring  to-night!"  All  the  prophets  had 
thunderous  voices.  You  can  tell  that  by  the  kind  of 
language  they  used.  And  no  woman  could  think  or 
rumble  such  curses.  Also,  however  assured  her  min 
istry  might  be,  I  should  know  that  her  faith  was  just 
a  woman's  faith  after  all,  born  on  its  knees,  and 
liable  to  stay  there.  Very  few  women  will  ever  enter 
the  gates  of  Paradise  carrying  Hosanna  banners ;  they 
will  come  meekly,  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  and  a 
moving  tale  of  suffering  and  sacrifice  on  their  lips. 
I  know  all  that,  being  a  woman  myself.  And  I  am 
bound  to  confess  I  should  feel  safer  if  my  salvation 
were  led  through  this  vale  of  tears  by  the  regular 
bifurcated  priests  of  the  Lord,  who  do  not  know 
these  things  or  who  concede  them  to  us  as  a  part  of 
our  religious  nature.  This  is  only  a  notion,  of  course, 
and  I  do  not  recommend  it  to  other  women,  but  I 
am  just  telling  the  truth  about  how  I  feel.  It  is 
my  nature,  and  I  believe  it  is  the  natural  nature  of 
most  women  to  feel  most  comfortable  when  under  the 
safe  conviction  of  the  superiority  of  the  man  or  man 
kind  nearest  her  in  life,  except  of  course  in  the  mere 
matter  of  her  more  delicate  feminine  virtues  and  the 
censored  language  she  uses.  I  always  felt  happily 
and  immeasurably  inferior  to  William,  though  I  had 
streaks  of  alien  light  in  my  mind  very  helpful  and 


248  MY    SON 

illuminating  to  his  feet  in  the  straighter  path  through 
the  wilderness  of  this  world. 

In  my  relation  to  Peter,  however,  during  these  ten 
years  of  his  ministry  I  had  missed  this  comfort.  I 
suffered  much  from  the  depression  of  being  some 
where  far  beyond  him  in  the  spirit.  It  was  not  that 
I  was  his  mother,  nor  yet  the  difference  which  years 
and  experience  make.  And  it  troubled  me  to  have  a 
profounder  spiritual  sense  of  life  than  he  had,  stand 
ing  in  his  pulpit  preaching  the  Lord's  word.  Now, 
quite  suddenly  our  relations  were  changed  and  I  ex 
perienced  the  ineffable  satisfaction  of  being  properly 
in  the  rear  of  my  son,  a  peaceful  meekness  all  women 
have  toward  a  true  priest.  I  went  about  my  duties 
with  this  blessed  feeling.  And  Peter  went  about 
doing  his  pastoral  visiting  in  a  new  siprit. 

He  was  away  the  whole  of  every  afternoon  and  I 
supposed  he  was  visiting  the  poor,  which  is  what 
a  good  man  usually  does  when  his  vision  clears.  And 
I  should  not  have  suspected  the  new  kind  of  poor 
he  was  visiting  if  Mrs.  Buckhart  had  not  come  in 
one  day.  She  said  Brother  Thompson  was  certainly 
stirring  things  up  in  his  church.  I  said,  yes,  the 
congregation  was  mending,  that  every  seat  was  filled 
now  at  every  service.  She  said  that  was  not  what 
she  meant  at  all,  and  I  asked  what  she  did  mean  then, 
seeing  that  she  had  a  smile  in  her  eye  which  did 
not  look  pious  to  me. 

She  told  me  that  Peter  was  after  the  stewards  in 


MY    SON  249 

his  own  church;  she  said  it  was  out  all  over  town. 

I  was  alarmed.  Sometimes  a  closer  walk  with  God 
tempts  a  preacher  to  discipline  members  of  his  church 
for  transgressions  with  which  they  have  been  per 
manently  endowed,  and  of  which  they  will  no  more 
repent  than  they  will  of  the  few  remaining  hairs  on 
their  head.  I  did  hope  Peter  would  not  develop  this 
harsh  kind  of  piety. 

Mrs.  Buckhart  read  my  anxiety  and  said,  "Oh,  I 
don't  mean  that  he  is  doing  anything  radical.  But 
he  is  sitting  up  with  Cathcart  and  Mixon  and  Way- 
land,  every  one  of  his  stewards,  for  all  I  know,"  she 
exclaimed,  laughing. 

"But  what  for4?"  I  asked. 

He  wants  them  to  repent  of  their  sins,  seek  for 
giveness,  become  Christian  men,"  she  answered.  "Mr. 
Cathcart  is  very  much  upset,"  she  went  on.  "It 
seems  that  Brother  Thompson  told  him  that  he  was 
only  a  rich  man,  a  prominent  citizen  and  a  steward 
in  the  church,  but  that  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  were 
not  in  him!" 

She  threw  up  her  hands  and  shrieked  with  laugh 
ter. 

"Did  you  ever  hear  of  such  a  thing!  It  is  done 
not  in  polite  Christian  circles,"  she  exclaimed. 

"What — what  are  the  charges  against  Mr.  Cath 
cart?"  I  stammered,  remembering  a  dark  circum 
stance  earlier  in  the  year,  and  believing  sleeping 


250  MY    SON 

scandals  as  well  as  sleeping  dogs  should  not  be  dis 
turbed. 

"That  is  what  Cathcart  wants  to  know,"  she  re 
turned.  "Mr.  Wayland  was  present.  He  told  me 
what  happened.  He  had  made  exceedingly  short 
shift  for  himself  it  seems.  He  said  Brother  Thomp 
son  was  in  Cathcart's  office,  talking  to  him  about  re 
penting  and — and — well,  you  know,  really  getting 
down  to  the  business  of  letting  his  light  shine  as  a 
Christian,  as  it  does  now  as  a  railway  magnet.  What 
fault  did  Brother  Thompson  find  in  him,  he  wanted 
to  know.  Didn't  he  give  his  goods  to  feed  the  poor? 
Yes.  Didn't  he  support  the  church*?  Yes.  And 
attend  to  his  duties  as  a  steward?  The  material 
ones,  yes.  Wasn't  he  a  decent  man  in  his  walk  and 
conversation?  Yes.  Well,  then,  why  had  Brother 
Thompson  hopped  on  him,  with  forty  dozen  out 
doing  sinners  in  his  church  that  really  needed  jacking 
up?  And  what  else  did  Brother  Thompson  want 
him  to  do — resign  his  stewardship?  No,  certainly 
not.  He  wanted  Cathcart  to  go  down  on  his  knees 
and  pray  the  Lord  to  renew  a  right  spirit  within  him. 
He  said  Cathcart's  mind  and  spirit  were  centered 
on  the  things  of  this  world  and  that  was  what  was 
the  matter  with  him.  Which  is  the  truth  about  all 
of  us,"  she  concluded. 

"Mr.  Wayland  said  he  did  not  mind  the  way 
Brother  Thompson  talked  to  him,"  Mrs.  Buckhart 
went  on,  "but  Cathcart  was  all  broken  up.  He  had 


MY   SON  251 

gone  to  see  the  presiding  elder  about  it.  And  I  heard 
that  the  elder  saw  Brother  Thompson.  Nobody 
knows  what  happened  between  them,  but  it  had  no 
effect,  because  Brother  Thompson  had  a  meeting  of 
the  stewards  last  night  after  prayer  meeting,  and  he 
gave  them — well,  you  know  Wayland,  a  nice  fellow, 
but  not  very  refined — he  said  Brother  Thompson 
gave  them  the  'once-over,'  and  that  he  prayed  one 
of  the  most  scarifying  prayers  he  ever  heard  in  their 
behalf." 

She  said  that  though  she  regarded  Brother  Thomp 
son  as  a  fine  preacher  she  had  always  thought  of  him 
as  easygoing,  spiritually  speaking,  and  that  she  was 
surprised  at  the  new  development  in  his  ministry 
and  she  did  hope  he  would  not  carry  it  too  far. 

"Well,  I  hope  he  won't  become  an  evangelist,  that 
sort  of  thing,"  she  answered.  "He  has  been  so  well 
received  by  the  best  people.  I  heard  one  of  the  mem 
bers  of  his  church  say  he  had  the  elegance  of  brains. 
She  said  his  sermons  were  the  finest  tapestries  of 
thought.  He  is  popular  with  people  who  have  some 
appreciation  of  talent.  He  is  one  of  the  few  preach 
ers  we  have  who  could  fill  acceptably  the  pulpit  of 
a  cosmopolitan  church." 

I  listened,  and  thought  how  far  removed  now 
Peter  was  from  this  worldly  praise  of  his  ministry. 

"You  know  it  is  one  thing  to  be  a  popular  preacher 
and  quite  another  thing  to  be  a  popular  revivalist.  I 
cannot  imgaine  Brother  Thompson  drawing  a  crowd 


252  MY    SON 

like  that.  People  whose  religion  begins  by  such  a 
shocking  exposure  of  their  emotions  to  the  harsh 
weather  of  the  gospel!  Shouting  and  going  on, 
Ugh!"  she  concluded  with  an  expressive  shrug. 

I  regarded  her  thoughtfully,  wondering  why  she 
liked  me  for  I  had  never  liked  her  or  her  charities, 
and  least  of  all  her  advice.  And  though  she  was  no 
longer  a  member  of  the  church  Peter  served  she 
would  drive  nine  miles  to  give  it.  I  reckon  I  have 
suffered  more  advice  from  incompetent  people  than 
any  other  woman  alive  unless  she  has  spent  nearly 
forty  years  in  the  Methodist  itinerancy. 

"And  you  know  it  will  ruin  him  in  the  Confer 
ence,"  she  said,  rising  to  go,  as  she  always  did  when 
she  uttered  a  depressing  prophecy. 

It  was  her  way  of  leaving  her  dead  to  bury  them 
selves. 

"The  Conference  did  not  call  Peter  to  preach  the 
gospel,"  I  answered,  rising  to  get  her  parasol,  which 
she  always  tries  to  leave  behind  my  parlor  door,  that 
she  may  come  back  for  it  and  say  something  else 
about  Peter  which  she  has  not  the  courage  to  say 
to  him. 

"No,  but  the  Conference  can  send  him  back  to 
the  little  towns  and  circuits  to  preach  where  the 
people  have  their  regular  August  fits  of  religion,"  she 
returned  grimly,  as  she  went  out.  And  she  hoped 
I  didn't  mind  her  speaking  so  plainly  since  she  was 


MY   SON  253 

interested  in  Brother  Thompson  and  did  not  want  to 
see  him  make  a  mistake. 

I  told  her,  no,  I  did  not  mind  in  the  least — and 
allowed  the  screen  door  to  bang  behind  her  as  harsh 
ly  as  it  would  slam. 

Then  I  went  back  and  sat  down  in  the  dust  of  my 
hopes  for  Peter.  I  had  yielded  long  ago  any  taste 
I  had  for  the  pomp  and  circumstances  of  this  present 
world,  but  it  was  not  so  easy  to  think  of  Peter  strip 
ped  of  his  fine  reputation  as  a  popular  city  preacher, 
sent  back  to  live  the  life  his  father  had  lived  in  the 
itinerancy.  Moses  and  that  other  cloud  of  wit 
nesses  are  not  the  only  miracles  of  the  same  kind. 
We  are  all  subject  now  and  then  to  a  fog  of  memo 
ries  out  of  which  appear  and  disappear  the  faces  of 
just  men  made  perfect  through  sacrifices  that  lasted 
for  years  and  were  not  merely  the  burnt  offering  of  a 
good  deed  here  and  there.  It  is  a  vision  of  William 
I  have  at  such  times,  and  never  in  a  cloud  of  glory 
surrounded  by  the  long-bearded  Major  prophets,  but 
I  see  him  an  obscure  preacher  of  the  word  traveling 
down  the  years,  growing  old  and  bent  beneath  the 
burden  of  souls  and  his  own  prayers,  his  fame  barely 
reaching  from  one  circuit  to  the  next  one.  The 
church  is  founded  upon  the  faith  and  sacrifices  of 
these  dead  and  forgotten  men  of  God.  No  one  knows 
to  whom  Paul  addressed  some  of  his  greatest  epistles, 
like  those  to  the  Romans.  I  reckon  he  sent  them  to 
the  "preacher  in  charge,"  who  preserved  them,  but 


254  MY    SON 

whose  own  name  does  not  appear  in  the  Scriptures. 
Many  a  time  I  have  comforted  myself  with  reflec 
tions  like  these  about  William. 

But  one's  son  is  different.  When  I  considered 
Mrs.  Buckhart's  prophecies  about  Peter  I  could  not 
endure  so  much  meekness.  I  was  not  willing  to  see 
him  pass  out  among  the  inglorious  faithful  saints  as- 
his  father  had  done.  I  cast  about  for  some  other 
happier  future  for  him.  And  I  reckon  for  the  first 
time  in  my  life  I  pinched  off  a  little  of  William's 
halo  with  a  diminishing  thought.  It  might  be  after 
all,  I  reflected,  that  William  lacked  some  quality  of 
mind  or  nature  essential  to  a  great  preacher,  which 
Peter,  my  son,  did  have.  The  church  must  recog 
nize  this  quality  in  him,  and  he  must  therefore  con 
tinue  to  be  a  preacher  of  great  power  and  influence. 
He  was  better  equipped  than  his  father  for  detect 
ing  and  combating  the  shrewd  fallacies  of  our  times, 
and  so  on  and  so  forth.  Then  I  caught  myself  sit 
ting  with  closed  eyes  praying  for  the  bishops  and 
elders  of  our  church,  which  is  a  thing  I  never  did  be 
fore,  because  in  William's  day  they  were  the  thorns 
in  my  side,  and  I  did  not  care  particularly  about 
commending  them  to  the  attention  of  my  Heavenly 
Father. 

But  now  I  prayed  that  they  might  be  enabled 
to  recognize  the  worth  and  quality  of  my  son, 
and  that  they  would  continue  to  reward  him  with 
the  best  appointments.  A  mother  will  do  such 


MY    SON  255 

things.  The  Lord  in  his  kindness  only  knows  how 
unscrupulous  and  grasping  she  can  be  for  her  chil 
dren.  If  her  son  is  blind,  or  dead  in  his  trespasses 
and  sins,  she  will  pray  for  his  redemption,  but  once 
she  is  sure  of  his  salvation  she  whirls  right  in  and 
prays  with  equal  fervor  for  the  success  of  his  for 
tunes  in  this  present  world.  I  must  say  this  prayer 
yielded  me  some  comfort  and  a  stronger  faith  in 
the  governing  powers  of  our  church.  It  may  be  if  I 
had  prayed  of tener  for  our  bishops  I  should  have  bad 
more  confidence  in  their  wisdom,  but  it  is  very  hard 
to  believe  fearlessly  in  the  disinterested  wisdom  of 
an  autocrat. 

Early  in  the  spring  of  this  year  Peter  conducted 
the  usual  series  of  meetings  in  his  church.  But  now 
about  the  middle  of  October  he  announced  one  Sun 
day  morning  that  there  would  be  services  there  every 
evening  until  further  notice.  He  invited  all  sin 
ners,  and  those  who  desired  a  closer  walk  with  God 
to  attend.  The  implication  was  that  neither  the 
saints  nor  the  public  were  wanted. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  Mr.  Cathcart  called.  He 
came  to  tell  Peter  that  he  would  handle  the  press 
end  of  the  revival  and  would  insure  him  all  the  pub 
licity  he  needed.  He  had  already  engaged  a  reporter, 
he  said,  to  take  stenographic  reports  of  his  sermons. 
He  told  Peter  that  he  really  wanted  to  do  all  he 


256  MY    SON 

could  to  help  and  he  hoped  Peter  would  feel  free 
to  call  on  him. 

"For  anything,  Thompson,  but  to  lead  in  prayer ! 
I  can't  do  that!"  he  exclaimed. 

"All  right,"  Peter  answered,  "I  won't  ask  you  to 
lead  in  prayer.  I  never  have,  because  I  do  not  think 
you  are  fit,  Brother  Cathcart.  A  lot  of  our  members 
do  not  believe  you  are  a  Christian  man." 

"Now  don't  start  that  again,  Thompson,"  he  ex 
claimed.  "I'm  beginning  to  believe  a  little  in  my 
forbearance  at  least  or  I'd  never  take  the — er — drub 
bings  you  have  been  giving  me  of  late!" 

"But  I  shall  take  you  at  your  word  and  call  on 
you  for  what  you  can  do,"  Peter  went  on.  "And 
there  is  something  you  can  do  that  will  be  of  great 
assistance." 

"What  is  it?"  Cathcart  asked  with  the  cordial  look 
of  a  little  boy  who  wants  to  win  favor.  He  really 
was  a  good  man,  I  believe,  a  better  Christian  than 
Peter  thought  he  was,  seeing  that  he  suffered  all 
the  time  the  mortal  temptation  of  being  president 
of  a  big  corporation. 

"I  want  you  to  disengage  that  reporter  at  once," 
Peter  informed  him. 

"Oh,  very  well,"  Cathcart  returned,  taken  aback. 

"You  know  the  editors  of  our  three  daily  papers 
personally,  don't  you?"  Peter  went  on. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  do  a  lot  of  business  with  them,  ad 
vertising,  you  know,"  Cathcart  answered. 


MY   SON  257 

"Well,  I  am  going  to  ask  you  to  use  your  influence 
to  make  sure  that  no  mention  whatever  of  these 
meetings  appears  in  the  papers,"  Peter  informed  him. 

Cathcart  wanted  to  argue  this  point.  He  thought 
at  least  the  papers  should  carry  an  announcement. 
He  said  it  was  customary,  and  how  would  the  people 
know  of  these  services? 

"If  I  can  preach  with  the  right  authority,  if  I  can 
make  only  a  few  believe,  that  church  will  be  filled. 
We  do  not  want  publicity.  We  want  some  personal 
private  repentance.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  the 
power  of  the  press  unto  salvation.  It  is  the  power 
of  God  we  need.  The  church  has  suffered  more  than 
anything  else  from  exploitation,  experiments  and  ad 
vertising.  This  meeting  is  going  to  be  a  private  af 
fair,  between  the  Lord  and  just  us.  The  people  who 
attend  these  services  shall  be  made  to  feel  this  sanc 
tity  in  our  church  and  nothing  that  goes  on  there 
shall  be  exposed  to  the  world,"  Peter  concluded. 

Cathcart  was  impressed.  He  said  it  was  a  novel 
idea  and  it  might  work.  My  impression  is  that  he 
thought  this  might  be  a  shrewder,  more  enticing  form 
of  advertising. 

Peter  preached  that  night  from  the  eighteenth 
chapter  and  fourth  verse  of  Ezekiel:  "Behold,  all 
souls  are  mine;  as  the  soul  of  the  father,  so  also  the 
soul  of  the  son  is  mine :  the  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall 
die." 

It  was  what  I  call  a  powerful  sermon.  He  claimed 


258  MY    SON 

these  people,  and  all  people  in  his  Lord's  name.  He 
was  like  a  man  seeking  in  the  rubbish  and  confusion 
of  the  world  for  that  which  belonged  to  his  Father. 
He  brushed  away  the  world  and  its  problems  and 
laid  hold  of  what  always  remained,  the  imperishable 
spirit  of  man. 

But  it  was  not  until  he  came  to  the  last  clause  of 
his  text,  "The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die,"  that  a 
change  came  over  this  congregation.  This  church 
was  filled  with  a  fierce  wind  which  came  blowing  on 
us  from  down  the  ages.  Peter's  very  words  seemed 
to  smoke.  The  heat  of  damnation  doctrines  singed 
our  very  ears.  I  glanced  about  hurriedly  in  this 
storm  of  denunciation  and  saw  the  pale  faces  of  the 
people.  No  man  looked  at  his  neighbor.  Cathcart 
and  Wayland  were  sitting  together  on  the  front 
bench  like  targets.  "And  Peter  was  not  missing  a 
single  shot. 

I  am  as  willing  as  anybody  to  be  convicted  of  my 
sins.  I  am  used  to  it,  and  am  not  so  much  cast 
down  on  account  of  the  practice  I  have  had  in  re 
pentance,  but  I  felt  queer,  as  if  we  were  all  being 
drawn  forcibly  back  in  time  when  the  doctrine  of 
damnation  was  still  a  hot  doctrine,  and  Hades  a  very 
real  place  of  fire  and  brimstone.  It  seemed  to  me 
every  minute  Peter  would  go  as  far  as  that.  But 
he  kept  clear  by  a  margin  so  narrow  that  you  could 
almost  smell  the  inward  torment  of  souls.  He  was 
using  strong,  old-fashioned  words  and  there  was  an 


MY   SON  259 

aged  majesty  in  his  sentences,  like  old  prophets 
marching  out  to  throw  dust  over  their  heads  and 
pray  for  their  straying  people. 

Presently  it  dawned  on  me  what  was  happening. 
Peter  was  preaching  to  this  modem  city  congregation 
his  great-grandfather's  sermon  on  The  Soul  that  Sin- 
neth!  It  was  a  naked  picture  of  the  Promethean 
tragedy  of  evil,  such  as  the  imagination  of  elder 
preachers  produced. 

I  leaned  back  and  felt  easier.  But  no  one  else 
did.  Whatever  happened  later  he  had  certainly 
awakened  the  consciences  of  those  present. 

For  nearly  a  week  he  preached  from  the  bottom  of 
that  old  box  of  sermons.  And  after  the  third  night 
the  church  could  not  hold  the  crowds  that  came  to 
hear  him.  Then  one  evening  he  invited  penitents 
to  the  altar  for  prayers. 

This  was  the  test.  It  is  not  so  difficult  for  plain, 
honest-to-goodness  men  and  women  to  admit  that 
they  are  sinners,  but  this  was  a  church  filled  with 
fashionable  folk,  and  people  of  this  sort  are  no  more 
inclined  to  take  a  penitential  role  at  the  altar  of  the 
church  they  attend  than  they  are  to  spring  upon  the 
stage  and  take  part  in  the  play  at  the  theater  they 
attend.  The  stuff  must  be  brought  to  them,  sitting, 
whatever  it  is,  whether  amusement  or  salvation.  So 
I  thought  Peter  was  taking  a  terrible  risk  when  he 
invited  them  to  confess  their  sinfulness  by  coming  up 


260  MY    SON 

for  prayers.  I  was  so  nervous  I  could  not  sing,  Just 
as  I  Am,  which  I  have  sung  a  thousand  times.  I 
held  my  hymn  book  open  and  watched  the  congre 
gation.  It  was  like  watching  a  fine  house  built  on 
the  sand.  I  could  see  it  swaying  a  little,  about  to 
crack  and  crumble.  Then  poor  old  Brother  Cath- 
cart  sneaked  out  from  near  the  front  and  knelt  at 
the  altar.  The  breach  had  been  made.  In  a  moment 
the  aisles  were  crowded  with  men  and  women,  some 
coming  timidly,  doubtful,  as  if  they  had  never  done 
this  before  and  did  not  know  how  it  would  look, 
others  walking  boldly  as  if  they  used  to  do  it,  and 
knew  how,  and  were  glad  of  the  chance  to  be  decent 
and  honest  about  their  transgressions. 

In  the  old  days  we  always  had  helpers  round  the 
altar,  seasonable  Christians  who  talked  to  the  peni 
tents.  So,  now,  after  many  years  I  walked  again 
among  these  kneeling  sinners  as  I  used  to  do  in  the 
little  backwoods  churches  on  William's  circuits, 
telling  them  how  to  pray,  how  easy  it  is  to  be 
lieve  in  God  if  they  would  renounce  the  world;  the 
same  old  promises,  the  words  of  comfort  I  used  to 
say. 

There  was  a  very  small  gray  seismic  disturbance 
at  one  end  of  the  altar  with  Peter  bending  above  it. 
I  thought  I  had  seen  Brother  Cathcart  kneel  there. 
Then  I  saw  Peter  step  over  the  altar  rail  and  start 
down  the  aisle  toward  the  rear  of  the  church.  Pres 
ently  he  returned  with  a  very  red-faced  man,  who 


MY   SON  261 

stood  and  glared  down  at  these  penitents  as  if  he 
doubted  something  he  had  heard.  Then  Peter 
plucked  Cathcart  out  of  the  midst  of  them,  looking 
disheveled  and  as  if  he  was  about  to  be  drowned 
with  every  thread  on  him  dry.  The  red-faced  man 
glared  at  him.  Cathcart  made  a  face  at  him,  which 
may  have  been  the  cramps  of  repentance  in  his 
countenance.  They  retired  to  the  amen  corner  and 
had  some  words.  Then  they  both  came  back  and 
knelt  at  the  altar.  The  red-faced  man  was  the  fore 
man  of  Cathcart's  railway  shops.  Peter  told  me 
afterward  that  at  last  he  had  found  out  how  to  avert 
a  strike. 

Incidents  like  this  happened  now  every  day,  as 
they  always  do  in  real  revivals.  Enemies  forgave 
each  other.  Labor  knelt  with  capital,  and  there  was 
no  trouble  in  inducing  both  of  them  to  acknowledge 
their  faults  and  make  amends  and  concessions. 

I  reckon  the  reason  why  the  people  acted  so  freely 
according  to  their  feelings  was  because  nothing  was 
published  about  these  services.  That  church  became 
a  household.  Never  was  so  much  sensational  copy 
wasted  in  this  city.  And  Peter  even  took  one  of  the 
editors  of  our  morning  paper  into  the  church  at  the 
close  of  the  meeting  along  with  three  hundred  other 
converts.  This  man  said  he  had  already  made  up 
his  mind  to  quit  the  newspaper  business  anyhow.  I 
do  not  know  what  he  meant  by  saying  that. 

It  was  while  these  meetings  were  in  progress  that 


262  MY    SON 

Peter  came  home  one  evening  and  asked  me  if  I 
noticed  "that  girl." 

"Which  girl  ?"I  asked. 

He  did  not  know  her  name.  He  had  never  seen 
her  there  before,  but  he  had  noticed  her  particularly 
because  she  was  different. 

"How  do  you  mean,  different?"  I  asked. 

"I  do  not  know,"  he  answered. 

"Did  she  come  up  for  prayers'?"  I  asked. 

"No,  she  has  been  converted.  I  am  sure  of  that," 
was  the  astounding  answer. 

"How  can  you  be  sure?" 

"By  her  face.  It  is  a  little  verse  of  goodness  with 
a  short  upper  lip  and  a  turned-up  nose,"  he  laughed. 

The  next  night  I  kept  on  my  long-distance  glasses 
and  looked  for  this  girl,  but  I  could  not  find  her  by 
the  description  Peter  had  given. 

He  wanted  to  know  again  if  I  had  recognized  her. 
"She  was  sitting  in  the  fifth  row  from  the  front  in 
the  middle  aisle,"  he  said.  "She  has  dark  hair  and 
she  is  very  fair.  Her  eyes  must  be  blue,  but  they  are 
dark." 

"What  was  the  color  of  her  dress?"  I  asked. 

He  had  not  noticed  that. 

"Did  she  wear  a  large  hat*?" 

He  was  confused.  He  had  not  noticed  what  kind 
of  hat  she  wore. 

"Young?" 


MY    SON  263 

She  had  the  youth  of  innocence;  that  was  all  he 
knew  about  her  age. 

I  considered  this  matter.  Peter  was  in  love  with 
a  girl  whom  he  did  not  know,  whose  foot  he  had  not 
seen,  which  is  the  wildest  risk  a  man  can  take  in  love. 
I  have  heard  him  comment  oftener  on  the  feet 
of  women  whom  he  knew  than  upon  their  faces, 
characters  or  brains.  I  always  thought  Isobel 
Sangster's  feet,  which  were  very  small  and 
pretty,  had  something  to  do  with  his  unfortunate 
infatuation. 

The  next  day  as  luck  would  have  it — if  it  was  not 
the  girl  herself  behind  it — Mrs.  Woodberry  called 
me  on  the  phone.  She  said  her  niece,  Reba  Wood- 
berry,  was  visiting  her  and  she  wanted  us  to  come 
over  for  tea. 

Peter  declared  that  he  did  not  have  the  time,  but 
since  I  had  accepted  the  invitation  he  would  go  if 
only  for  a  few  minutes. 

The  first  thing  I  saw  when  we  entered  the  Wood- 
berry  parlor  was  a  tall,  pretty  girl  with  a  verse- 
of-goodness  face.  The  next  thing  I  saw  was  my 
son  flushing  as  red  as  a  schoolboy  when  Mrs.  Wood- 
berry  presented  her  niece. 

I  do  not  know  how  they  managed  it,  but  when  our 
heads  were  turned  for  a  moment  Peter  and  Reba 
disappeared.  We  could  hear  them  talking  in  the 
library  across  the  hall. 

"They  are  in  love,"  Mrs.  Woodberry  said  simply. 


264  MY    SON 

"In  love!"  I  repeated,  not  as  a  question,  but  a 
sentence  which  I  pronounced  against  Peter's  mother. 

"Yes.  She  is  very  much  interested  in  him.  You 
know  how  transparent  girls  are.  She  would  have  me 
ask  you  this  afternoon.  She  was  determined  to  meet 
him,  to  hear  him  talk  to  her,  not  a  whole  congrega 
tion!"  she  laughed. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  Peter's  courtship.  And 
it  was  a  courtship  practically  without  interruptions 
to  the  end.  What  time  he  was  not  attending  to  his 
pastoral  duties  he  spent  with  Reba  Woodberry,  or 
mooning  about  the  house  waiting  for  a  seasonable 
hour  to  call  on  her.  Men  are  strangely  adjustable. 
Here  was  Peter,  but  recently  come  to  a  sense  of  him 
self  as  a  priest  of  God,  engaged  with  all  the  fervor 
of  his  spirit  upon  the  apocrypha  of  himself,  which  is 
what  every  lover  is,  an  eloquent  exaggeration  that 
bears  only  the  faintest  resemblance  to  the  man  he 
is  or  to  the  husband  he  will  become.  He  was  exalted 
as  by  a  great  sorrow,  and  he  was  humble  beyond  any 
previous  knowledge  I  had  of  him.  It  seemed  that 
he  had  only  a  despairing  hope  of  winning  Reba's 
love.  I  have  noticed  this  about  men — a  bad  one 
or  a  cheap  fellow  is  always  presumptuously  sure  of 
his  success  in  a  romantic  affair,  but  a  good  one  rarely 
ever  is.  Love  seems  to  knock  the  very  tail  feathers 
out  of  his  masculine  conceit.  He  works  up  a  pre 
varicating  sense  of  unworthiness  with  an  eloquence 


MY   SON  265 

and  sincerity  that  have  tried  the  patience  of  many  a 
waiting  woman.  So  it  was  that  Peter  went  on  villi- 
fying  himself  to  Reba  Woodberry  and  suffering  his 
self-imposed  fears  when  it  was  perfectly  apparent 
to  me  that  she  was  only  awaiting  an  opportunity  to 
accept  him. 

She  may  have  been  in  love  with  Peter,  I  do  not 
know  if  she  was  or  not,  but  she  certainly  was  in  love 
with  the  preacher  Peter. 

It  is  conceded  the  world  over  that  the  most  at 
tractive  man  to  women  is  a  soldier,  but  the  conces 
sion  is  made  by  a  world  not  so  intimately  associated 
as  I  have  been  with  preachers.  I  have  never  known 
one,  married  or  single,  young,  old  or  damnably  ugly 
who  failed  quite  unconsciously  to  stir  the  prayer 
signals  of  a  sort  of  spiritual  romanticism  in  more 
feminine  hearts  than  he  was  in  a  position  to  satisfy 
without  a  breach  of  prudence  or  morals.  I  reckon  it 
is  because  they  see  him  in  the  pulpit,  while  they  only 
see  the  soldier  in  his  uniform.  But  every  Sabbath 
day  they  behold  their  pastor,  clothed  in  the  long 
sadcoat  tails  of  his  order,  uttering  the  noblest 
thoughts  and  scaling  the  very  walls  of  heaven  with 
his  prayers  and  eloquence. 

Now  since  Peter  was  by  no  means  ignorant  or  en 
tirely  innocent  in  regard  to  the  romantic  inklings  he 
had  excited  in  every  church  he  had  served,  I  nearly 
lost  my  patience  with  his  diffidence  in  this  his  first 
really  serious  affair,  before  he  came  in  one  evening 


266  MY    SON 

smiling  like  a  blessed  lamb  of  God  and  informed  me 
that  Reba  Woodberry  had  promised  to  be  his  wife. 

I  said  the  right  things.  Reba  was  a  nice  girl.  She 
would  make  him  a  good  wife.  I  entirely  approved 
of  his  choice,  and  I  hoped  they  would  be  happy.  But 
I  could  not  help  feeling  sad  for  myself,  wondering 
a  little  about  what  would  become  of  me  now,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  he  assured  me  tenderly  that  we 
would  all  live  happily  together  ever  after.  Two  can 
do  it,  but  I  doubt  if  three  can. 

I  went  to  my  room  that  night  feeling  like  the  last 
withered  leaf  on  a  naked  bough  with  a  cold  wind 
rising.  I  noticed  particularly  how  stiff  my  knees 
were  when  I  knelt  to  pray  that  the  Lord  would  bless 
my  son  and  make  him  a  good  husband,  and  cause  his 
face  to  shine  as  this  girl  who  had  promised  to  be  his 
wife.  But  when  I  tried  to  think  of  a  prayer  for  my 
self,  tears  came  instead.  I  could  only  think  of  Wil 
liam  and  wish  for  the  old  days  we  had  spent  to 
gether. 

When  there  is  nothing  else  you  can  do  for  yourself 
it  is  a  great  relief  to  weep,  and  I  must  have  let  go  a 
bit  because  presently  I  heard  Peter  tap  on  the  door. 

"Mother!"  he  called. 

"Yes,  Peter,"  I  answered,  making  haste  to  get  in 
bed. 

"Are  you  all  right  *?"  he  wanted  to  know. 

"Yes,"  I  answered. 

"I  thought  I  heard  you "  he  began. 


MY   SON  267 

"You  did,"  I  interrupted  quickly;  "you  heard  me 
sneeze.  I  am  catching  cold." 

"May  I  come  in?' 

"No,  Peter!  Go  to  bed,"  I  answered  in  my  mater 
nal  voice,  which  was  normally  irritable. 

There  was  a  silence,  then:  "Mother!"  he  called 
again  in  softer  tones. 

"Yes,  my  son." 

"You  are  the  best  mother  in  the  world,"  he  an 
nounced. 

I  was  in  the  mood  to  feel  that  this  was  highly 
probable,  but  I  had  the  grace  to  remain  silent. 

"And  no  woman  can  take  your  place  in  my  heart," 
he  added. 

"I  know  it,  Peter.  Now  go  to  bed.  You  will 
catch  your  death  in  that  cold  hall." 

"Good  night,  mother!" 

"Good  night,  Peter!"  I  returned,  wondering  how 
large  a  place  that  was  reserved  for  me  in  his  heart. 

I  did  not  rest  that  night  and  I  did  not  feel  very 
well  the  next  morning — not  ill,  but  I  had  a  sort  of 
depressed  superannuated  feeling  round  the  heart. 

Jealousy  is  a  queer  thing.  You  may  think  you 
are  free  from  it,  but  you  never  are.  It  is  the  pos 
sessive  case  of  all  human  nature.  We  cannot  escape 
it,  especially  when  we  are  about  to  lose  something 
which  always  belonged  only  to  us.  I  was  honestly 
glad  Peter  had  chosen  a  wife.  I  was  willing  that 
he  should  love  and  cherish  her.  What  hurt  me  like 


268  MY    SON 

the  sharpest  pain  was  the  fact  that  I  could  no  longer 
do  the  things  I  had  always  done  for  him.  I  could 
not  put  his  clothes  away  or  get  them  out  again  for 
him,  or  mend  his  things  or  plan  the  dishes  he  par 
ticularly  liked,  because  his  wife  would  do  these 
things.  I  was  about  to  become  a  highly  cherished 
relic  in  my  son's  house !  I  might  as  well  be  a  portrait 
of  myself  hanging  on  the  wall ! 

Nevertheless,  I  went  to  call  on  Reba  Woodberry  in 
the  afternoon,  as  was  my  duty.  This  was  a  sort  of 
ceremony.  Mrs.  Woodberry  was  also  present  and 
we  only  got  through  the  polite  speeches  of  a  pros 
pective  foreign  relationship.  Reba  was  glowingly 
pretty  and  far  too  happy  to  notice  my  sadness  which 
I  tried  to  conceal. 

The  next  afternoon  I  was  sitting  in  the  corner 
beside  the  fire  in  the  parlor  with  my  mending  basket 
and  I  was  trying  to  thread  a  needle,  which  of  late 
years  always  reminds  me  of  that  camel  mentioned  in 
the  same  connection  somewhere  in  the  Scriptures,  it 
is  so  hard  to  do.  I  was  still  intent  upon  this  task 
when  the  door  opened.  I  did  not  look  up  because  the 
thread  seemed  to  be  feeling  its  way  more  intelligent 
ly  toward  the  eye,  and  I  thought  it  was  Peter  com 
ing  in. 

Then  I  heard  the  swish  of  a  skirt.  The  thread 
shot  past  but  not  into  the  needle,  and  I  looked  up,  to 
see  Reba  Woodberry  standing  a  little  wistfully  just 
inside  the  door,  flushed,  smiling,  but  with  her  hand 


MY    SON  269 

behind  her  still  clasping  the  knob,  not  entirely  sure 
of  the  situation. 

My  hands  flew  apart,  the  thread  between  the  fing 
ers  of  one  and  the  needle  between  those  of  the  other. 

Before  I  could  move  or  speak  a  word  of  welcome 
she  flew  across  the  room,  kissed  me  and  exclaimed, 
"let  me  do  that!"  in  a  tone  which  implied  that  it 
was  a  perfect  outrage  for  a  woman  of  my  age  to  be 
obliged  to  thread  her  own  needles. 

She  dropped  on  the  stool  at  my  feet,  cocked  her 
pretty  head  to  one  side  and  performed  this  service. 

I  am  a  hypocrite !  I  suppose  one  must  be  in  dealing 
with  another  woman.  It  is  a  part  of  our  mutual 
gender.  I  felt  my  chin  quiver  and  the  tears  spring 
in  my  eyes. 

"My  dear,  Peter  would  never  have  thought  of 
doing  such  a  thing  for  me,"  I  quavered. 

"You  really  do  need  a  daughter,  you  precious 
darling!"  she  exclaimed,  regarding  me  tenderly. 

I  was  not  able  to  control  my  feelings  for  a 
moment.  My  mind  went  back  through  the  years  as 
we  go  sometimes  seeking  a  lost  memory.  When  had 
any  one  called  me  "precious,"  and  who  ever  had  had 
the  temerity  to  call  me  "darling"  *?  I  had  always  been 
plain  "mother"  to  Peter  or  "Dear  Mother,"  if  it  was 
a  letter  he  sent.  I  had  been  just  "Mary"  to  Wil 
liam,  or  "Dear  Wife"  if  it  was  a  letter.  Clearly  I 
had  missed  something  out  of  my  whole  life,  the  touch 
of  a  hand  like  this  soft  white  one  resting  upon  my 


270  MY    SON 

knee,  the  look  of  eyes  like  these  lifted  to  mine,  blue 
and  sweet,  and  a  girl's  voice  to  call  me  gentle 
names. 

"Yes,"  I  answered  tremulously,  "at  my  age  a 
daughter  will  be  very  comforting.  I  have  often 
thought  if  Peter  had  been  a  girl  he  would  know  when 
I  am  not  feeling  well.  As  it  is  he  never  does  unless 
I  tell  him." 

She  was  moved  to  bestow  more  caresses,  which 
weakened  me  to  further  larger  tears,  all  the  time 
being  conscious  of  my  deep  duplicity,  knowing  how 
hard  it  was  going  to  be  to  yield  Peter  to  her  care, 
but  at  the  same  time  experiencing  a  maudlin  satis 
faction  in  her  ministrations. 

We  had  some  talk  after  this.  I  told  her  how 
good  it  was  of  her  to  marry  Peter.  He  needed  a 
wife.  She  said  she  was  proud  to  be  chosen,  and  that 
she  regarded  my  son  as  a  great  man. 

"Peter  does  very  well,"  I  answered  dryly.  There 
was  no  need  to  raise  false  hopes  about  his  perfec 
tions.  Lovers  have  them,  but  husbands  do  not. 

"He  has  promised  to  make  me  happy,"  she 
answered,  probably  in  rebuttal. 

"Well,  he  won't,"  I  returned. 

"Why?" 

"Because  no  man  ever  did  or  can  make  a  woman 
happy.  They  only  make  us  patient  and  long-suffer 
ing  and,  maybe,  good,"  I  answered. 

The  weather  of  her  countenance    changed.     The 


MY   SOX  271 

bright  skies  of  her  eyes  darkened  at  me,  you  under 
stand,  not  Peter. 

"He  will  do  the  best  he  knows,"  I  went  on  ruth 
lessly.  "He  will  remember  for  a  long  time  to  help 
you  up  and  down  the  steps.  He  will  pick  up  your 
handkerchief  if  you  drop  it,  because  he  has  been 
taught  to  do  these  things.  And  he  will  kiss  you  when 
he  goes  out  in  the  morning  if  you  train  him  to  do 
it.  But  he  won't  if  you  don't.  Men  are  children. 
You  can  never  let  up  on  them." 

She  said  she  supposed  so,  but  in  a  tone  which  im 
plied  that  she  did  not  believe  a  word  I  was  saying. 

"You  realize,  my  dear,  what  a  serious  thing  you 
are  doing  when  you  marry  a  Methodist  preacher?"  I 
began  again. 

She  hoped  she  did. 

"It  is  not  like  marrying  an  ordinary  man,"  I  told 
her. 

"Oh,  no,  of  course  not." 

"You  enter  a  difficult  family,  the  church,  not  as  a 
member,  but  as  the  daughter-in-law  of  the  congre 
gation,  so  to  speak.  You  surrender  many  pleasures 
and  companionships.  Peter  will  be  your  only  world 
ly  amusement,  and  he  cannot  be  worldly  at  all,"  I 
warned  her. 

She  threw  back  her  head  and  keened  a  laugh,  shrill 
and  merry,  at  this  definition  of  Peter.  Then  sud 
denly  she  grew  serious.  There  was  the  shadow  of 
a  fear  in  her  eyes. 


272  MY    SON 

"It  will  not  be  so  terrible,  all  that,  with  Peter  to 
love  me"?"  she  asked. 

I  regarded  her  for  a  moment  in  silence.  I  saw  my 
own  youth  sitting  there  untried  by  the  griefs  and 
hardships  of  the  years  I  had  known.  And  suddenly 
I  remembered  the  yield  of  these  years:  A  good  con 
science ;  peace ;  all  the  memories  of  William;  my  son. 
What  immeasurable  rewards  had  been  mine ! 

"No,  my  dear,"  I  answered,  drawing  her  close  to 
my  knees.  "You  will  have  your  cares  and  your 
burdens.  Every  woman  does.  But  you  will  always 
have  honor  and  respect.  You  will  move  in  the  best 
society.  You  have  chosen  a  great  career.  I  haven't 
a  doubt,  Reba" — laughing  at  my  own  thought — 
"that  they  who  were  the  wives  of  preachers  in  this 
world  will  be  the  leaders  of  the  highest  society  in 
heaven!  They  will  know  so  much  about  the  man 
ners  and  customs  of  that  place  by  faith !" 

Just  then  Peter  came  in.  Reba  sprang  to  her  feet, 
and  we  all  laughed  together  and  love  abounded. 

Still  I  felt  like  the  shadow  of  many  years  on  this 
bright  horizon,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  would 
spend  most  of  the  following  summer  with  Maggie 
Fleming  in  the  Redwine  circuit. 

In  November  the  Annual  Conference  of  our 
church  met  as  usual.  I  was  very  anxious  about 
Peter.  He  was  beloved  by  his  people  and  we  heard 
that  they  had  sent  a  strong  petition  asking  that  he 
should  be  returned  to  them.  But  I  have  known  such 


MY   SON  273 

petitions  to  fall  like  seed  in  stony  ground,  meaning 
no  reflection  on  the  heart  of  the  bishop  or  his  cab 
inet.  Reba  was  also  anxious,  chiefly,  I  think,  be 
cause  she  wanted  a  church  wedding  and  to  be  mar 
ried  in  Peter's  church.  She  had  no  conception  of  the 
significance  that  must  be  attached  to  Peter's  appoint 
ment  this  year  nor  that  the  fate  of  her  husband's 
whole  future  in  the  ministry  would  depend  upon  it. 

At  last  the  news  came  in  a  wire  from  Peter  to 
Reba.  He  had  been  returned  to  this  church!  I 
reckon  for  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  really  forgave 
the  episcopacy  and  the  elders  for  not  appreciating 
William  according  to  his  true  worth. 

Peter  and  Reba  were  married  the  following  April. 
They  went  away  on  their  honeymoon  and  I  went  up 
to  spend  a  long  time  with  Maggie  Fleming. 

The  spring  flowers  were  blooming  on  William's 
grave,  not  those  I  had  planted,  but  fair  young 
maiden  blossoms  from  seed  blown  there  by  the  sum 
mer  wind,  very  small  and  white,  close  to  the  sod, 
as  if  it  would  never  do  to  make  too  great  a  display 
of  themselves  upon  the  grave  of  such  a  man  as  this. 

How  different  the  whole  of  life  has  been  from  the 
hopes  and  plans  I  had.  Sometimes,  sitting  here  in 
the  late  afternoon  of  my  days,  I  wish  for  some  great 
worldly  woman  who  had  her  way  and  her  happiness 
with  whom  to  exchange  experiences.  I  have  a  curios 
ity  to  know  how  such  a  woman  thinks  and  feels  when 


274  MY    SON 

the  shadows  gather  behind  her  and  the  pale  stars  of 
immortal  countries  begin  to  shine  in  the  sunset  skies. 
Is  there  such  a  thing  as  happiness?  Would  she 
know  *?  Or  is  this  the  only  real  thing,  faith  in  God  ? 


(THE  END) 


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